


fate is against me

by bodhirookes



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Christmas Party, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Office Party, Party Games, Shyan Writing Events, and lots of shenanigans and tomfoolery ensues, basically everyone competes in some christmas games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 11:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17160932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodhirookes/pseuds/bodhirookes
Summary: “Since we’ve all been working really hard this year, the higher-ups have allowed us to take it kind of easy this month. Which means: we get to partake in some friendly and healthy holiday season festivities together.”This sends a ripple of excitement throughout the office. They’ve always been really busy around the holidays, and the most they get to do is have an office party after hours one night in December and maybe decorate their desks in their down time. The thought of doing fun holiday activities during work with all of his coworkers melts the annoyance out of Ryan’s body immediately, and he finds himself grinning with Steven and Jen like they weren’t just seconds away from strangling each other.“What that really means,” Quinta cuts in, clapping her hands together. “Is that we’re going to cram as much Christmas spirit into these next few weeks as we can because they might never let us do it again.”-Ryan's bosses hold a series of Christmas-themed competitions in the office, and along the way he learns about the true meaning of Christmas, experiences how satisfying it is to prove TJ wrong, and possibly wins himself a boyfriend.He also gets bamboozled by Ned Fulmer. Like, a lot.





	fate is against me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MercurySkies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurySkies/gifts).



> Hellooooo everyone!! This is my fic for the Shyan Secret Santa 2018 exchange!! I accidentally went overboard because I wanted to put as much of my recipient's wishlist into the fic as I could, and this 27k monster is what resulted, so hopefully some of it is good. Shout-out to my new homie [@mercury-skies](http://mercury-skies.tumblr.com/) for sending me a nice list of things to include in their fic, and thank you to [@shyanwritingevents](http://shyanwritingevents.tumblr.com/) for hosting this! I hope you enjoy Soph!! From your wishlist, this fic contains: clothes sharing, hurt/comfort, banter, maybe a small dash of folklore??? if facts about Santa Claus count, and some good ol' gingerbread house making! 
> 
> All mistakes are my own because I don't have a beta! Title comes from O Fortuna because that's a dramatic ass song and it fits perfectly with the mood of this fic

When Sara and Quinta make their big announcement, Ryan’s in the middle of arguing with Steven about some part of their project for the millionth time, so it couldn’t have come at a better time in his personal, tired opinion. 

“Ryan, we can’t put the logo right there. It totally throws off the entire feeling of the advert.” 

“In what way, Steven?” Ryan asks. He’s trying to be discreet about the thumb he has crammed against his temple, a clear sign that he’s annoyed, but thinks he’s probably failing epically.

Steven makes some gesture at their project that does absolutely nothing to help Ryan understand what the issue is here. “Just look at it.” 

“Wow, Steven, that’s a great way to explain why you’ve been holding up progress on our project for the past thirty minutes,” Jen says, giving her best friend a sarcastic thumbs up. “No wonder Quinta picked you as our second in command for communications.” 

Steven looks like he’s about to gear himself up for a long-winded explanation on why he’s excellent at communicating with people while still not communicating with them on what he finds so wrong with their project thus far. Luckily, this is when their managers call for all of their attention, effectively cutting off Steven’s ramble. Ryan could drop to his knees and kiss Quinta’s feet at this point for the much-needed interruption. 

“Hey, can we get everyone’s attention, please?” Sara calls out across the office. 

There are twenty of them in total, not counting the two managers. Every single one of those twenty voices abruptly stops speaking when Sara asks for their attention, and the silence is a welcomed change from literally everything going on around Ryan. He accidentally catches Selorm’s eye from her side of the office, and when she sees the pissed look on his face, she smiles like she’s trying not to smile. 

“Thanks!” Sara says. “We’ve got an exciting announcement for you all to break up the monotony of taking the advertising world by storm.” 

“For sure,” Jen mutters, lightly flicking Steven in the arm with her pen. 

“As you guys know, since we try to keep this a positive environment and motivate you all to keep up the good work you’re doing, our numbers have been great this year. The best they’ve ever been. You guys have pushed yourselves to the limit this year, and your hard work has really paid off for the company.”

Sara’s praise makes them all light up, and when Chris calls for: “Hear, hear, a round of applause is in order for that righteous statement,” Sara and Quinta join them all in said round of applause. 

“Since we’ve all been working really well together, making good numbers and even better content- kicking names and taking ass, if you will- the higher-ups have allowed us to take it kind of easy this month. Which means: we get to partake in some friendly and healthy holiday season festivities together.” 

This sends a ripple of excitement throughout the office. They’ve always been really busy around the holidays, and the most they get to do is have an office party after hours one night in December and maybe decorate their desks in their down time. The thought of doing fun holiday activities in the office during work with all of his coworkers melts the annoyance out of Ryan’s body immediately, and he finds himself grinning with Steven and Jen like they weren’t just seconds away from strangling each other. 

“What that really means,” Quinta cuts in, clapping her hands together. “Is that we’re going to cram as much Christmas spirit into these next few weeks as we can because they might never let us do it again.” 

The whole office laughs. 

“We’ve been planning and scheming for a while.” she continues. “We’re going to have a good mix of competitive games and fun, non-competitive activities since you’re all really creative and really, really crazy about being better than each other.” 

“That’s only for the different sides,” Andrew tells her. 

Their office is split in half, with ten of them on one side, and ten on the other, each side specializing in different aspects of creating advertisements. Quinta’s side (the one Ryan works on) focuses more on the visuals of the adverts they create, and Sara’s side focuses more on the writing for these adverts. Both sides have always had a flare of friendly competition amongst each other, and Ryan’s absolutely sure that this sense of competition is going to be pushed to the limits during whatever it is that Quinta and Sara have planned for them. 

“Of course the King Show-off is gonna bring that up,” Ned harrasses. “Give it a rest, Ilnyckyj. Just admit that our side is always going to be one step ahead of you.”

Because Ryan can’t help himself, he inserts himself into the friendly heckling. “Hey, wasn’t it, and I quote, our ‘Crisp, beautiful imagery.’ that won over our biggest client of the year, Fulmer? Didn’t hear a single damn thing about the fancy words in that bit of feedback.” 

Ned shakes while Keith, Zach, and Eugene all boo at Ryan and give him a collective thumbs down. 

And, just as he knew it would go as soon as he inserted himself into the conversation, the next response comes from the desk behind Ned’s. 

“Crisp, beautiful imagery ain’t gonna help you win some good ol’ Christmas games, Bergara,” Shane teases, and when Ryan just flips him off and tries not to grin, the whole office breaks out into another peal of laughter. 

“Save it for the games, gentlemen,” Sara tells them, as though she isn’t also laughing. “Take that energy and use it to kick more names and take more ass.” 

“That sounds like a green light if I’ve ever heard one.” Ned makes the I’ve-got-my-eyes-on-you gesture at Ryan, and then at Andrew. “We’re coming for your asses, boys.” 

Ryan and Andrew share a look and roll their eyes at Ned, used to his ridiculous behavior. 

Steven suddenly gets to his feet and almost sends Ryan’s laptop flying. “Hey, you better stay in your lane, buddy. That ass is mine.” 

“I didn’t know you had Ryan’s ass under patent,” Keith laughs. “Good for you, dude. Two beautiful men for the price of one- that’s hard to beat.” 

Ryan feels like a blood vessel is going to pop somewhere in his head. “Please stop immediately.” 

“Yeah, I think that’s enough.” Quinta points between all of them, effectively cutting off their squabbling. “We told you to save it for the games. We mean it!”

“Yes, master.”

Quinta makes a face. “You wish, Fulmer. Now, none of the Christmas festivities are happening today, so everyone gets to go back to work and stop harassing Ryan about what he does in his free time as a consenting adult.” 

Ryan finally feels the headache that’s been sitting and waiting make its move. He groans and pinches the bridge of his nose like all of this talk about him and Steven getting it on is shortening his lifespan. Which, well. 

“I would like to state very clearly for the record that I’d rather walk across a sea of Legos than do anything freaky with Steven. I’m pretty sure Andrew would rip out my spine and turn it into an origami swan before he let that happen.” 

“That’s hot,” Tania pipes up, smirking. “Is it code for something?” 

Ryan gives her a long, flat look, before turning back to the project he’s been struggling through with Jen and Steven for the better part of three days. “Anyways, Steven, I want you to explain to me with words and complete sentences why, exactly, you think our project looks like a raging dumpster fire.” 

After some more laughing and under-the-breath teasing, everyone takes the hint and goes back to their projects, much to Sara and Quinta’s delight. 

Steven only teases him once more by saying: “Are you really that upset that everyone found out you’re my side chick?” and immediately stops when Ryan threatens to sell the Lakers tickets he bought for Steven to strangers on the street. 

He doesn’t have to hear about it again until Shane comes over to scoop him up for lunch, just like he does every other day. And just like every other day, Ryan has to pretend that the feeling of Shane putting a hand on the back of his chair and bending down to look at Ryan’s laptop doesn’t send a little ping of lightning through him. Has to pretend that the soft and spicy smell of Shane’s cologne doesn’t make him swoon like a fifteen year old girl. 

“That looks pretty good, man. I don’t know what Steven was going on about, but he’s full of bologna.” 

“Ain’t that the truth,” Ryan mutters, and then saves the project before shutting his laptop. When he spins his chair around, Shane keeps his hand where it is so that he’s pretty much caging Ryan in, and Ryan doesn’t really know how to deal with that. 

Shane is, of course, one hundred and ten percent oblivious to Ryan’s little meltdown, or groups it in with the rest of Ryan’s general keyed-up-ness, and just gives him a shit-eating grin.

“Trouble in paradise?” 

Ryan scoffs and pushes Shane away so that he can stand up. “Please. I’m gonna kill Steven Lim for getting that bit started, even if Andrew kills me back. You know how shit runs wild here. I bet people from the branch in Chicago are gonna know about my polyamorous relationship with Steven and Andrew by four o’clock tonight.” 

Shane laughs and slings an arm around his shoulders, pulling Ryan into a friendly half-hug. Ryan would pay whoever he needs to some big bucks to get a big, two-armed hug from Shane at this current moment in time, but he also doesn’t want to raise suspicion, so he settles for what he gets. 

“C’mon, Ry- those two are a real catch. I heard that their dinner dates are a truly extraordinary.”

“Yeah, because Steven and Andrew’s idea of a cool dinner date is going to five different restaurants over the course of a night to see who makes the best mac n’ cheese. Does that sound like fun to you? That’s insanity, if you ask me.” 

Shane shrugs. “Sounds kinda cool.”

“Thanks for having my back, big guy.” Ryan grouches, letting Shane steer him towards the elevator. “I can’t believe everything thinks I want a piece of the Anton Ego Duo. An absolute scandal.”

“Well, I can help you to get revenge on them by kicking their asses in these supposed Christmas shenanigans that Sara and Quinta are planning out.” 

Ryan squints up at him. “Shane, they’re on  _ my  _ side of the office. So you will also be kicking  _ my _ ass.” 

Shane’s lips twitch. “You win some, you lose some, right?” 

“Oh, your side is  _ so _ going down. I don’t care if I have to conspire with Marshall and Lily- you’re going to lose so hard, dude.” 

“Are you forgetting that I have Eugene Lee Yang and Tania Safi on my side? I’d like to see you  _ try _ to beat us.” 

Ryan leans closer to Shane and gives him a very predatory grin. “Yeah, but  _ I’ve _ got Quinta Brunson.” 

And Shane doesn’t really have a good comeback for that, so all he has left is: “Oh, yeah? Well at least I’m not dating Steven and Andrew.” and even though Ryan knows he shouldn’t take such obvious bait, he does, and the two of them bicker all the way to lunch. 

**_~.~.~_ **

The entire office is seated together in their single conference room, each side on a respective side of the long table. Quinta and Sara are standing at the head of the table, looking extremely excited about their choice for today’s holiday game. It’s the first, and Ryan is curious to see what they’re going to be doing, even if the only benefit is that they don’t have to be working on all of their end of the year bullshit. 

Sara gives them all her best set of jazz hands. “For the first game in our  _ friendly and healthy  _ holiday festivities series, we’re going to be playing-” 

Quinta pulls out the box from behind her back and gives it a little shake. Across the lid of the game reads  _ Christmas Trivial Pursuit  _ in bright red and green letters. 

“Oh, come on,” Adam groans, head tilting back dramatically. “I can’t even play regular  _ Trivial Pursuit. _ Why would you bring that satanic game to an innocent little gathering?” 

“Aye, pipe down, Scrooge.” Quinta says. “You play this game with your whole heart or I’ll put viruses on your laptop.” 

Quinta has access to almost all of his files since Adam sits on her side of the office, and he’s quick to clam up. Ryan guesses that he’s thinking about the huge project he’s been working on with Annie and how catastrophic it would to lose it. 

“That’s what I thought.” Quinta nods at Adam, and then turns back to the rest of them. “Since we still have work to do, we can’t play through the whole game, but we’ve been given about an hour to do what we can. So we’ll play until we can’t anymore and whichever team has the most point at the end gets to hold onto the statue until the next game.” 

“You mean the trophy?” TJ asks, a little confused. 

Sara grins at him and, without a word, produces what is clearly a miniature version of the sexy leg lamp from  _ A Christmas Story  _ from underneath the table _. _

“Holy shit,” TJ laughs. “You two really aren’t holding back, huh?”

Sara shakes the statue for emphasis. “That’s what we’ve been saying!” 

To start the game off, Sara and Quinta call up the two people closest to them and have them play a quick game of rock-paper-scissors to determine which side will go first. Curly goes up from Quinta’s side of the office, and Keith goes up for Sara’s. They meet each other in the middle of the conference table and shake each other’s hands like any formidable competitors would. 

Curly ends up winning rock-paper-scissors, and Keith teases him about it good-naturedly. 

“I hope you enjoyed that- it’s the one and only time you guys are gonna win.” 

“Oh, please,” Curly responds pleasantly, blowing a kiss at Keith’s retreating back. “That’s called foreshadowing, sweetheart.” 

“Alriiight!” Quinta extends the word while shuffling up the cards inside of the game. “Curly Velasquez, my sun, my moon, my stars- you get to go first! Choose wisely!”

Curly grins and reaches into the box to pull out a card. Ryan looks intently up at him, ready to shout out the answer along with the rest of his coworkers. He tries to ignore the faces Shane is making at him from out of the corner of his eyes, and the way Ned is whispering under his breath: “Please be obscure, please be obscure.”

Curly reads over his card, thinks for a few seconds, and asks his side: “What is the name of the lead actor in the movie  _ White Christmas?”  _

A beat of silence, and then: “Bing Crosby!” from Maycie.

Ned shouts, “Dammit!” and Niki shouts back, “He’s the one who fucking sings  _ White Christmas,  _ Ned!” 

Quinta uses the whiteboard on the front wall to make a tally underneath her name and Curly skips back to his seat.

“You’re up next, Keith,” Sara announces, shaking the box of cards. “Don’t let us down.”

“On my honor.” Keith selects a card and reads over it, and then starts his turn. “What are the other two most well-known names that Santa Claus goes by?” 

The silence that follows his question is much shorter than the one following Curly’s question, and Shane ends up yelling out: “Saint Nick and Kris Kringle!” in under five seconds. Ryan catches his eye afterwards and jokingly moves his thumb across his throat. Shane just sticks his tongue out at him. 

The game continues on in a similar fashion all the way down each row. They’ve each gone at least three times now, and Ryan’s forgotten how long they’ve been playing this damn game but he kind of hopes they don’t have to stop any time soon. His side is leading by one point because Sara’s couldn’t remember whether or not the first Christmas tree appeared in the United States, and guessed true instead of false. Tensions are starting to rise at this point imbalance. 

Ryan is just glad that his last question ( _ “Why are candy canes red and white?” _ ) was one that his team answered correctly since Steven isn’t a heathen like the rest of them and attends church on a regular basis. 

They’re back on Jen, who’s sitting towards the front of Ryan’s side, and her smile makes him relax. It’s an easy question. 

“What is the name of Ebenezer Scrooge’s old business partner in  _ A Christmas Carol?”  _

“That’s so fucking easy,” Chris gripes. 

Quinta makes a motion at Adam. “It’s your time to shine, Bianchi.” 

Adam purses his lips, like he’s considering not answering the question just to spite Quinta, but then he mutters out: “Jacob Marley,” and lets Steven, Andrew, and Annie whoop and holler and jostle him around for getting it right. 

After Jen sits down again, Zach heads up to the front and selects his next card. As he’s reading it over, a little crease forms between his eyebrows and Ryan resists the urge to throw a fist up into the air. Another hard one for Sara’s side, probably. 

“Which country is the largest exporter of Christmas trees?” 

Sara’s side all look at each other in bewilderment. 

“That’s the dumbest question I’ve ever heard!” Eugene yells. “Who the fuck cares!” 

“We care!” Sara yells back. “Think about it long and hard, gang- Quinta’s team is already beating us by one point. We can’t afford another set-back.”

Tania throws out: “Maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about it if dumbass white people weren’t the ones making these stupid questions up.” 

The team thinks long and hard about it, a few of them even thinking about it out loud and discussing it with each other, but when Sara announces that they only have fifteen seconds left to pick a country, they choke up. In a moment of desperation, as Sara is counting down from ten, Ned shouts, “Canada!” and Zach swears colorfully. 

“Holy shit, I can’t believe you got that. How in the fuck did you get that right?” 

Ned smirks, like he didn’t just pull a guess right out of his ass, and taps a finger against his temple. “It’s all up here in filing cabinets, buddy.” 

Zach rolls his eyes and flings his card into the discard pile. “It’s not my fault that I’m Jewish and all these questions are about Christmas in its most Christian and capitalistic form.” 

“That’s half the fun of these games,” Quinta grins. “You’re up, Andrew.” 

It all comes to a head when it’s Annie’s turn. Selorm’s turn just ended, the other team successfully answering: “What color are the berries on mistletoe plants?”, and they’re currently at 35-34. Ryan is feeling pretty good about their odds, thinks that they’ll probably end up beating Sara’s team since they’re getting a little frantic, but then he watches Annie’s face change as she’s reading the card. 

She takes a moment to look at them all, and they can plainly see the despair on her face. Niki lets out a thin noise of disappointment and Andrew whispers, “God, no, not when we’re this close.” 

Annie hesitates, and then asks them: “What country does Saint Nick originate from?” 

Daysha slams her hands down on the table. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

Sara’s side, on the other hand, are all cheering and celebrating because they know how impossible it’s going to be to answer this question. 

“Good luck with that one, y’all!” Eugene laughs. 

Chris is laughing, too, telling them all: “This is karma for making fun of us for the Christmas tree card.” 

“It was fun seeing you all act high and mighty for being in the lead,” Tania says, grinning wickedly. “But it’s going to be even funner seeing you get pushed back down to Level Loser with us again.” 

“Funner isn’t a word,” Ryan hears himself say, because he’s extremely salty that their lead is probably going to get ruined in the next ten seconds. Tania just giggles and tells him that no one likes a sore loser. 

“Guys, we still need to come up with an answer!” Annie reminds them, pulling the team back to attention. “Even if it’s wrong, we should still try! We can do this!” 

Much like Sara’s team did when Zach asked about the country that produces the most Christmas trees, Ryan’s team all look at each other wildly. It’s extremely clear that none of them have even the slightest hint of a guess at the right answer, and the other team’s laughter increases when they see it, too. 

Ryan forces his panic to subside and his brain to get back online. Okay, he can fucking do this. He can show Sara’s team that they’re not a bunch of fools who’ve been winning by pure luck. They’re smart. They’re quick on their feet. They can do this. He thinks hard about different stories he’s heard about Santa Claus over the years, and about the different cartoons and movies he’s watched for his entire life. 

When Quinta gives them a fifteen second warning, Ryan’s brain almost whites out again, until he remembers a movie he’s seen recently that he loves, one featuring Santa Claus with a very specific accent- 

Without consulting anyone else via eye contact, Ryan blurts out: “Russia!” and immediately feels his soul crush and break along with Annie’s falling face. 

“Nope,” she sighs. “It was Turkey.” 

“Turkey!” Andrew yells. “Nothing happens in Turkey! What the hell!” 

On the other side of the table, Selorm and Joyce are laughing openly- more specifically, they’re laughing at Ryan. 

“Ryan, did you guess Russia because of  _ Rise of the Guardians?” _ Selorm asks, and when Ryan feels his face heat up, the rest of Sara’s team starts to laugh at him, too. 

“Listen-” Ryan starts, but gets momentarily blindsided by the large, pretty smile on Shane’s face. He ends up talking directly to Shane, eyes drawn to him like a magnet, even though he knows he’s supposed to be talking to Selorm. “It was a logical guess! Everyone loves  _ Rise of the Guardians _ and I happen to put some faith and trust in the movie industry, unlike all of you skeptical adults. Who would lie to children? Why would they give North a Russian accent and appearance if Santa Claus wasn’t from Russia?” 

“Well, I think you learned your lesson,” Shane tells him, laughing even harder, and Ryan tries to glare at him but isn’t able to make his mouth do anything but smile back. “Better luck next time, Ry.” 

The jovial atmosphere immediately dissipates when Sara tells them: “This is the final round, since we’ve been at this for almost two hours and you’re finally even with each other. So, my team: this is for the gold. This is for the motherfucking statue.” 

She takes a moment to look at all ten of them individually, and then rests her eyes back on Joyce with purpose. “Joyce, it’s all or nothing now, buddy.” 

Joyce says something under her breath that sounds like suspiciously like a prayer to “whatever fucking saint deals with luck and success,” and then goes up to the head of the table. She draws a card carefully, and everyone else in the room leans towards her, even Ryan’s side. 

Her poker face gives nothing away, but Ryan can see it in the way her fingers tap against the card and the way her lips move around the words of the question: this question is either going to be really easy or really hard. 

Finally, she asks her team: “Which famous company was the first to introduce Santa’s outfit in the colors red and white?” 

Because this is the last question, Sara’s team is better at focusing their attention on something that’s not panic, much to Ryan’s displeasure. The ten of them on Quinta’s team watch in a tense silence as they chat amongst themselves and try to come up with reasonable answers, hearing snatches of, “Maybe it’s Disney? Does that even make sense?” and “What about Paramount? They’ve been around since the Tinseltown ages.” and a bunch of other logical, plausible answers.

Some of the hope returns to Ryan’s body when Sara regretfully announces the fifteen second warning and no one has come up with a good concrete answer. His side starts glancing at each other, smiles reappearing, and even Quinta looks pleased by their obvious struggle. 

But then, when there’s only a few seconds left, TJ shouts: “Oh my God, duh- it’s Coca Cola! Red and white, y’all!” 

Sara cheers loudly and gives her team the winning tally mark, and then, after some consideration, draws a bunch of circles around all the tallies and some stars next to it. Her side erupts into more cheers and they start a long chain of high fives down the row.

“We did it, bitches!” Eugene cries out. He’s so excited that he even goes as far as to pull the person closest to him- Ned- into a big hug. “We fucking did it!” 

Keith turns around in his chair to point at Curly. “Remember how you said it was foreshadowing when you won rock-paper-scissors? I think you meant that it was foreshadowing that all your team’s luck had already run out, and that our team was going to come out victorious as always.” 

“As if,” Curly sniffs, lips puckered up like he’s fighting back a big smile. “There’s still time, amigo.” 

Sara picks up the statue and holds it out to Joyce. “I do believe that since your question was our ticket to victory, that you should be the one to receive the statue for our first win.” 

Joyce pulls out all the stops to act like she’s going to cry, accepting such a major award. She clutches the statue to her chest, and turns to them all. “I want to thank not only God but Saint whatshisass for giving me the luck I asked for to win this game for us. And I also want to thank my teammates for not missing the answer to this question even if we did get a trick question wrong earlier. You’re the best team I could have ever asked for.” 

Sara’s team all start cheering for her and Joyce bows to them before bringing the statue around for everyone to get a closer look at it. While Sara’s team all brag about their superior Christmas knowledge, Quinta turns to her team. 

“Don’t let this discourage us, guys! There’s still many more games to play and many more chances to get your revenge on them. We’ll have that statue by the time Christmas rolls around even if it kills us!” 

Even though they all feel cheated of victory, Ryan and the rest of his teammates make varying noises of agreement, and Quinta gives them all a collective thumbs up and the “You guys did good this time, and next time, you’ll do  _ great,” _ speech before releasing them back into the office for the last few hours of their shifts. 

Ryan heads towards his desk, mind drifting between the part of the project he’s still working on with Jen and Steven and the absurdity of TJ knowing that Coca Cola was the company that debuted Santa’s iconic outfit. He’s so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice Shane coming up behind him, too busy with shifting through some papers on his desk and wondering why someone ever thought to make a Christmas tree in the first place. He physically jumps when he hears someone clear their throat right behind him, and when he whirls around, he’s wholly unsurprised to find that it is, in fact, Shane. He’s even less surprised to see that Shane is holding the statue in his big, long hands, and that he has the smuggest look possible on his equally big, long face.

“I just wanted to stop by and show you what it looks like to be a winner, Bergara,” Shane teases, tilting the statue this way and that. “This is probably as close to it as you’ll ever get, so I suggest you take a moment and just admire the view before it’s gone for good.” 

Ryan punches him lightly on the shoulder, finally out of his daze. “Shut up, Shane. You’re awful cocky for a guy whose team thought that Christmas trees originated from the United States even though that was a trick question that a fourth grader would have picked up on.”

Shane huffs and tilts his head up, a snotty look all over his face. “At least I wasn’t the one who suggested Santa Claus originated from Russia because of a Dreamworks movie.” 

_ “Rise of the Guardians  _ is superior to all animated movies about Santa Claus and other imaginary guardians of children. Sorry that I took that cinematic masterpiece to heart instead of to my head.” 

“Maybe if you took it to your head you’d be taller.” 

Ryan finally breaks and laughs at Shane. “You’re making a short joke because you don’t have anything else to come back with! I know you! I just called you out so good!” 

Shane laughs back, but still tries to uphold his snobby persona. “I’m just saying that I’ve got all the cards here- the first win of the games, the statue, more height. If you ever hope to catch up to me, you’d better start running.” 

Ryan starts to respond with another quip (because if that’s one thing he never runs out of, between good answers and more growth, it’s some smart remarks to throw back at Shane) but Eugene beats him to the punch. He’s on the way over to his own desk, phone in hand, and he barely spares them both a glance before declaring: 

“You two need to get laid.” 

and continuing on without another thought.

Ryan yells after him to avoid thinking about how close Shane is to him, and how he would very much like to get laid via sleeping with his best friend.

“Sorry we’re not all rich and beautiful like you, Eugene. It’s hard to get laid when you’re in the picture.” 

“Ain’t that the truth.” Eugene laughs, but doesn’t look up from his phone, just wiggles his fingers back at Ryan and Shane.  “Have fun, boys. Use that chaotic energy for something a little more beneficial.” 

Ryan used to blush and stutter whenever someone said something like this to him, but he’s grown used to his coworkers teasing him about his enormous, blatant crush on Shane Madej. In fact, the only person in the office that doesn’t know Ryan is in love with Shane is, well,  _ Shane, _ which is to be expected from someone who is so out of Ryan’s league that he’s playing on a different baseball diamond entirely. Now, whenever his coworkers bring it up in front of Shane, Ryan either rolls his eyes and acts like he has no idea what they’re talking about, or changes the subject entirely without being too obvious (hopefully). 

Ryan honestly figures that if Shane doesn’t know about it by now, then he never will, and it’s probably for the best anyways. 

So, instead of making it weird (another one of Ryan’s many talents) he just rolls his eyes and turns back to Shane. He’s glad to see that Shane looks just as tiredly resigned to always being in Eugene’s shadow. 

“He’s truly cracked if he thinks that we could compete with him for anyone’s attention,” Ryan tells him, sighing. “Especially me. Eugene is the epitome of cool, collected, and mysterious. If you press my buttons slightly wrong I break apart like a Jenga tower.” 

Ryan expects Shane to agree with him, or make a comment on his erratic behavior on any given day. But Shane doesn’t do any of that; instead, he smiles at Ryan, leans a little closer, and blinks in a way that Ryan might say is Shane checking him out if he was crazy. 

“You know, some people like uncontrolled and bat-shit crazy.”

Ryan doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean, and knows that if he tries to figure it out, he’s just going to give himself a migraine. Instead of taking the sentence apart, he says: “Gee, thanks a lot, pal.”

Shane laughs again, quieter and weirdly intimate. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m just saying- Eugene Lee Yang isn’t  _ everyone’s _ type.” 

“Shane, half of the women we work with are gay and they all say that Eugene’s the only man that they would date. My detective skills tell me that that’s not a coincidence.” Ryan ignores Shane’s snickering and presses on. “Remember, from that one episode of  _ Teen Wolf?  _ ‘Once is an incident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern, four times is enough for a warrant.’ That’s what I’m talking about here.” 

Shane shakes his head, still laughing, and taps the statue against Ryan’s chest. “For a supposed detective, you’re not very observant.” 

“What are  _ you _ talking about?”

He shakes his head, taps Ryan again, and then turns to walk back to his desk. “If you’re not getting it, then never mind. You will soon enough. Maybe this is why your team got their asses taken today.” 

Ryan watches as Shane saunters away, calling out to his side of the office and passing the statue off to Zach to admire. Ryan honestly has no fucking idea what just happened and how he went from being apart of the conversation to being on the outside of one half of a conversation, but it’s Shane, and when has Ryan ever really known what the fuck was going on with him? 

He finally peels his eyes away from the curve of Shane’s shoulders and his wide, beautiful grin when Jen sits down at the desk next to his. He gives himself another second to admire the way Shane looks like when he’s laughing and the way his dark blue and green flannel brings out the darkness of his wild hair, and then he sits down. 

“Fucking boys,” Ryan mutters, booting his laptop up. “They’re all fucking dumb and confusing.” 

“Tell me about it,” Jen agrees.

**_~.~.~_ **

Their next Christmas-themed activity together is, thankfully, not competitive. Quinta tells them about it right before they all break for lunch. 

“We decided to go ahead and throw in one of the laid back activities this early on since I’m pretty sure Bergara and Madej were two seconds away from choking each other out after  _ Trivial Pursuit.”  _

Ryan takes it in stride, even though he’s still thinking about Shane’s cryptic message and the twenty minute conversation he had with Jen about why boys are dumb afterwards. 

“Don’t act like you’re surprised,” he tells the whole office, and ignores the catcalls coming from Ned, Keith, Zach, and Eugene up front. He directs his attention onto Shane, even though looking at his pleased smile makes his stomach flutter. “You better fuckin’ prepare for the next game because I’m coming to kick your name and take your ass.” 

His coworkers titter at the way he words it, but Shane doesn’t break their intense eye contact, so Ryan takes it as the win it probably isn’t. 

“I’m honestly two seconds away from putting you two on the same team just to spite you,” Quinta tells them, shaking her head.

“Please for the love of God do  _ not,”  _ Ned moans. “We already have to deal with their weird inside jokes shit enough as it is- if he was on our team it’d be ten times worse.”

“Sorry that your only friend is your wife, Fulmer.”

“Bergara, you  _ wish _ you had a wife as cool as mine.” 

“It’s not like Madej isn’t already his wife.” Tania mutters, and that gets the whole office going again, Ryan and Shane included. 

Quinta just shakes her head again and tiredly tells them: “Get your asses back by the break tables and settle in. Sara and I ordered some pizza and we’re going to watch  _ How the Grinch Stole Christmas  _ and  _ Frosty the Snowman  _ together as a family.” 

They all let out various noises of excitement and are quick to save whatever they’ve been working on before closing it all down. Amidst the chaos of everyone pushing in their chairs and figuring out who’s going to go down and meet the pizza guy at the front door of the office, Ryan hears from across the room: 

“You and me, Bergara, usual table in five!” 

He looks away from Steven’s excited smile and seeks his best friend out; he grins when he sees Shane waving his arms around and pointing at the tables in the back like Ryan wouldn’t have been able to see him otherwise. As if he wasn’t the literal tallest person in the room. 

“Be there or be square!” Shane continues, making an I’ve-got-my-eyes-on-you gesture. 

Ryan puts his hands on his hips and proudly proclaims: “I’ll be there  _ and _ I’ll be square!” 

From Sara’s side of the office, he hears a voice float up that tells him: “That’s just a rectangle, Ryan,” and when Ryan figures out that it was Chris, he responds with a friendly: “Shut the fuck up, Reinacher.” 

As promised, the two of them sit together at their usual lunch table, side by side, with some pizza and breadsticks in front of them. TJ, Steven, and Andrew are also at their table, and the five of them talk about other things Quinta and Sara might have in store for them throughout the month while they wait for the movie to start. 

“I hope that we end up just going to different floors in the building and carolling at everyone’s offices.” Andrew tells them. “Imagine knocking on the door of one of the execs and him opening it up to us singing the Batman version of  _ Jingle Bells.” _

“Yeah, and we can sing  _ Blue Christmas  _ on our way out of the office after he fires us,” Ryan laughs. 

“You know what would be really cool,” Steven jumps in, talking around a mouthful of pizza. “Is if we could hire a glass blower to come in and make us all individual Christmas ornaments. I know it’s probably not in the budget, but!” 

Shane snorts. “Quinta one hundred and ten percent got that  _ Christmas Trivial Pursuit _ game from a Goodwill somewhere, so my guess is no, there’s not room in the budget to hire a glass blower.” 

“Do you think they’d let us bring one in if we  _ did _ have the money?” 

“No, and I can give you four reasons why-” TJ folds down one finger at a time as he rattles off: “Ned, Keith, Zach, and Eugene.” 

They all giggle into their pizza and try not to attract anyone’s attention outside of the table. 

Finally, after some finagling and technical difficulties, Quinta manages to get a projector set up and  _ Frosty the Snowman _ starts shortly after that. They all settle down and continue to work their way through all of the pizza as the movie plays on. As both a film and a competitive person, Ryan thinks that watching movies with the entire group might be even better than playing games with them. Even though there’s nothing quite like watching Keith Habersberger well on his way to a complete breakdown during some stupid Christmas trivia game, there’s still something so comforting and wholesome to Ryan about sitting with his closest friends and watching childhood Christmas movies together. There’s nothing quite like sitting next to Shane, their arms kind-of-purposely-kind-of-not pressed together, and laughing at scenes from Christmas cartoons they’ve seen a million and one times each. It makes him warm and content in a way that Ryan has been looking for his entire life. 

After  _ Frosty the Snowman _ finishes and they move onto  _ How the Grinch Stole Christmas,  _ Ryan and Shane are so slumped together that their entire sides are pretty much pressed together. It would take little to no effort for Ryan to tilt his head down and get cozy right on Shane’s shoulder. It’s around the time when the Grinch starts to make his way down to Whoville, and Shane’s fingers are  _ justbarely _ touching the back of Ryan’s when Ryan gets a little brave. He moves closer to Shane’s ear and whispers to him, under the sound of the music and Curly going nuts about how cute he thinks Max is:

“Do you think you’d ever pull a stunt like that with me?” 

“Hmm?” Shane hums, pulling his eyes away from the screen. He looks at peace and sparkly from watching old favorite Christmas movies, and Ryan wants to kiss him more than anything. 

Instead, he presses on. “Do you think you’d ever do something like that with me? The partners in crime trope, y’know? If I ever- hypothetically, of course- decided to steal an entire town’s Christmas paraphernalia in order to remind them or myself about the true meaning of Christmas, would you help me with it?” 

Ryan expects Shane to go off on some little sociopathic tangent about stealing things from the privileged and the tyrannical twist that society would take after having something like that happen to them, but instead he gets something he’s not that prepared for. 

Instead of all the bells and whistles, Ryan watches as a big, sweet smile spreads across Shane’s face, the physical equivalent of holiness, and watches as Shane leans in closer and says so that only they can hear: 

“I would do anything for you, no questions asked. Ride or die, baby.” 

He consequently spends the rest of _ How the Grinch Stole Christmas  _ (and maybe even the rest of the work day, but who’s to say) grinning like a dope and trying not to swoon. Going by TJ’s humored, knowing look, Ryan succeeds not at all. 

**_~.~.~_ **

When Quinta announces that the next office activity is a game, and is also Christmas-themed charades, the entire office loses it. 

After everyone gets done whooping and hollering about playing charades for a few hours, Zach turns to Ryan’s side of the office and yells over: 

“Not that I’m trying to make it look like we’re ever rooting for you, but today, we all get to witness something beautiful.” And, after a few moments of silence and them all looking at Zach expectantly, he finishes with: “We get to see the man himself, Adam Bianchi, acting like a reindeer or some shit.” 

That gets them all going again, especially when Adam loudly complains, “I wish you would all stop calling me out for these damn games!” He looks completely devoid of emotion even as Andrew, who is still laughing uncontrollably, puts an arm around him and tries to get him to lighten up. 

They all wrap up their projects and gather in the conference room together, sitting in the exact same order as they did for  _ Christmas Trivial Pursuit.  _ Ryan takes his place between Daysha and Maycie, and before they start the game, gets Shane’s attention.

When Shane looks up from messing around with TJ, Ryan leans across the table and smirks. “Y’all boys going down this time.”

Shane smirks back. “Says the captain of Team Loser. Throwback to when you thought Santa Claus originated from Russia because of  _ Rise of the Guardians.”  _

Ryan feels Daysha lean across the table, too. “I’m sorry, am I hearing things? I’m pretty sure it was  _ your _ team that thought the capital of cultural appropriation aka the United States of America thought Christmas trees originated from here. Weird, huh?” 

TJ catches on to what’s happening, and as someone else who also loves to pick on Ryan, he’s quick to join in. “Shocked and amazed that Bergara needs someone to help him fight his battles. You won’t be so high and mighty while you’re watching our team annihilate yours again.” 

Ryan laughs. “You guys are the one with Ned Fulmer on your team- that dude can’t act to save his life. We both have the same disadvantages here.” 

Ned and Adam both hear this from the front of the table, and turn to collectively flip them all off. It’s perfectly synchronised, and Ned and Adam don’t even notice. 

This time, when they start the game, Quinta calls up the people at the back of the line. 

“I feel like it’s only fair to let the tension build back up to Curly and Keith,” she tells them. “So: Maycie, c’mon up!” 

“Why do you get to go first again?” Tania asks, pouting. 

“Because we lost,” Quinta tells her. “And also because I said so.” 

Tania imitates her quietly to the rest of them, but going by the way Quinta tries not to laugh and Tania grins afterwards, it’s not ill-intended at all.

When she’s situated at the front, Maycie picks a little slip of paper out of some cute little Santa hat and reads over it. After some consideration, she starts to move; first she leans down like she’s taking something out of a box, and then she leans up on her tippy toes, and makes a hanging-up motion. She does this two more times before Jen yells out: “Decorating the tree!”

“Yeah!” Maycie cheers, and then sashays back to her seat. When she sits down, Ryan gives her a little fist bump and then gives Shane and TJ a look. They just silently shake their heads at him. 

“Alright, TJ, you’re up.” 

TJ unfolds himself from the desk chair and goes up to the front of the room to pick out his charades prompt. 

He digs around in the Santa hat, reads over his prompt, and then starts to pantomime open a door up and putting something inside of it. Then he starts to move his hand around in a circular motion, and then picks his imaginary object up and pretends to take a bite out of it. 

“Baking cookies!” Shane yells, and TJ nods while the rest of Sara’s side cheer. 

“Oh, it’s  _ so  _ on,” Ryan says to them when TJ sits down again, and heads up front to take his turn.

He feels a little intimidated with everyone’s eyes on him, but his dogged determination to beat Sara’s side of the office outweighs his embarrassment by miles. He digs around in the hat and pulls out the prompt: ice skating. He thinks about it for a second, and then starts by flinging his arms out to his sides and pushing himself around the front of the room. He doesn’t think he’s succeeding very well, even though he plasters a giant grin on his face and does a fancy little turn, but he’s super relieved when Daysha yells out: “Ice skating!” and then turns to TJ and tells him: “Eat shit, Marchbank!”

Everyone feels the competition a little more this time around, and the results of the game are even funnier than the results of  _ Christmas Trivial Pursuit. _ Shane goes after Ryan and gets the Grinch (which works extremely well for his face shape and also works extremely well at reminding Ryan of when they watched it during lunch and he acted like a teenager); Andrew has to act out “Little Drummer Boy” and gets all the ex-band kids going; Chris ends up failing at trying to act out “Blue Christmas” and sends his side of the office into a tizzy; Niki also sends Ryan’s side into a tizzy when she acts out Santa’s workshop and no one understands why she keeps hammering away on the table in front of them, and they lose a point as a result.

Each side only gets three guesses per turn, and it reaches a point where everyone is pretty much shouting out their guesses because of how desperate they are to win. At one point, when Adam is doing an admittedly less-than-stellar imitation of someone having a snowball fight, Steven gets out of his seat to yell: “Squaring up with middle-aged soccer moms to get to the present you want on the shelf!” 

Even though it causes the competitive environment to become even more chaotic, Ryan loves to watch Sara’s side of the office slowly lose their shit. For as much as he and everyone on Quinta’s side joke about it, there’s really nothing like watching Keith work his way up from frustrated to screaming at the top of his lungs with a bright red face. 

This happens when Tania goes up for a turn and no one on her side can guess what she’s trying to act out. She keeps opening and closing her mouth and mechanically moving her arms, and so far, all anyone has been able to guess is Mall Santa, for whatever fucking reason (another Ned Fulmer golden moment). Tania starts to get annoyed the longer her team takes to work out what she’s acting as, and after almost a full two minutes of her standing in front of them and moving around like an idiot, she breaks character. 

“Holy shit!” Tania foregoes the silence rule and starts yelling while also flailing her arms around, and Sara looks so painfully amused that she allows it. “Half of you bastards love these things! Unlike my gay ass! Please, for the love of  _ fuck _ , will someone pull their head out of their bum and use it!” 

It takes her team another handful of seconds, but finally Eugene gets what it is and screams:  _ “The Nutcracker! It’s The Nutcracker!”  _ and Selorm accidentally chokes on some of the water she’d been trying to drink. 

The six members of her team that actually do enjoy a nice set of nuts start letting out a round of “Ooohhh it all makes sense now,”s and “Why the fuck didn’t we see that before?”s between Zach, Eugene, Chris, Shane, Joyce, and Selorm. Even though it means they win another point, Ryan’s side of the office can’t help but laugh openly at Tania’s outburst and their friends’ utter confusion. As a part of the seven people on Quinta’s side of the office who also enjoy a nice set of nuts, Ryan, Steven, Andrew, Adam, Maycie, Curly, and Daysha all turn to each other and start saying: “We would have gotten that, right guys?” and Jen makes sure to tell them: “Not if I went up there, you wouldn’t have.” Niki and Annie are quick to agree with her. 

It’s another close game, but at the end of it, Ryan’s side ends up beating Sara’s. The game ends at 25-23, and they win when Daysha successfully acts out Building a Snowman. She’s the one who gets to collect the statue, and Ryan takes great pleasure in watching her pry it out of Joyce’s hands. Joyce pretends to sniffle and tells the statue she’ll see it soon before stepping away from Daysha. 

Daysha brings the statue down the line so that all of them can look at it and point it out to the other side, and when she brings it to Ryan, he takes it from her the way someone would take a newborn child. He cradles it gently in his hands, and then he looks over at TJ and Shane with something close to awe on his face. 

“Wow, do you guys see that?” he asks them, breathless. “That’s the result of our team kicking your names and taking your asses after getting our footing. Now you guys know what the fuck we’re about.” 

“Please,” TJ scoffs. “You guys only won because you got a bunch of easy ones right in a row. Anyone can act out kissing someone under the mistletoe.” 

“Maybe not everyone,” Annie says as she gets up to leave the conference room. “Maybe that’s why there such a huge stick up your ass, TJ.” 

TJ kind of flounders to respond, and everyone laughs at him through various states of getting up to leave and gloating over winning the statue back from Sara’s side. 

“Ouch,” Ryan laughs. “Mess with the bull, get the horns, man.” 

“Hey, don’t talk to my teammate like that.” Shane slings an arm around TJ’s shoulders, and stupidly, Ryan feels something like jealousy curl in his gut. “You guys just got lucky, is all, and we got too comfortable with being winners. Next game, your ass is grass. Right, Teej?” 

“Right, buddy.” TJ agrees, slinging his arm around Shane’s shoulders as well. Ryan tries not to let his grin slip. “This is just the beginning.” 

Daysha curls her arm around Ryan’s side, much in the same fashion as Shane and TJ are with each other. Ryan instinctually puts his arm around her shoulders, and he feels a little vindicated when he sees Shane zero in on the hand of hers that’s touching Ryan’s hip. 

“Bring it on, boys. Just don’t be too upset when that statue ends up on my desk for the rest of time and you end up being haunted by Christmas tree facts and Elvis Presley’s Christmas one-hit wonder for just as long.” 

Shane finally looks away from Daysha’s hand and fixes them both with a look that it equal parts challenging and determined. It’s extremely hot and extremely unfortunate to see in the office at 1 P.M. Ryan swallows and tries not to openly stare at the fire in Shane’s big eyes. 

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew, partner.” 

Ryan leans in, knowing that he has to act quick to save face and also his dignity. “Bold of you to assume that we chew when we can just swallow whole.” 

He’s not even sure what he means by that, knows that sounds vaguely or maybe not-so-vaguely dirty, but going by the way Shane’s face goes a little funny and comes out all glazed over, Ryan suspects he did something right for once. 

“I’m gonna hold you to that.” 

Ryan stares and stares into Shane’s molten eyes and hopes with every single little gay bone in his body that Shane keeps this promise, even if he doesn’t know what it means. Whatever it is, he wants it. 

“I hope you can keep your word better than you can keep the statue.” 

“You haven’t seen nothin’ yet.” 

**_~.~.~_ **

Quinta and Sara make the mistake of letting them play another game a few days later with no calm filler in between. It ends up being Christmas Carol Pictionary, and it gets even crazier than charades. At one point, Keith and Chris end up getting into a shouting match that rivals the one they had when fighting over cats and dogs. Both of them shout at each other at the top of their lungs, and Keith’s face turns bright red, and instead of trying to come up with the answer, they just imitate each other and scream. And it’s all over the fact that Chris can’t understand what Keith is trying to draw and Keith yells: “I’m trying to fucking draw  _ Baby It’s Cold Outside,  _ you vapid skank!” 

Obviously, their team loses the game, and Ryan’s side comes out victorious once again. It’s nothing less than sublime to watch all of their faces fall when Annie is given the statue for winning the game and she makes a huge speech about receiving such an honorable award. 

So, Quinta and Sara decide to take it easy for today’s activity.  

Sara starts setting out pieces of construction paper at their break tables, and Quinta follows along behind her with markers, colored pencils, and fancy calligraphy pens. As they’re setting up, Sara tells them: “Since you guys almost started a new world war a few days ago, we’re going to take it easy today. I’m sure that Keith’s brain cells will appreciate it.” 

“Thank you,” Keith say from the front of the room, suddenly looking years older. “And in case you guys were all wondering, Chris and I made up. Quinta made us say three nice things about each other and hug it out.” 

Chris acts like he has to force a smile onto his face. “Yes. We are friends once more.” 

They all giggle at them when they pretend to glare at each other with their fake smiles.

“We’re going to put on some Christmas music and write some good ol’ letters to Santa.” Quinta continues. “And after you finish writing your letter, you can bring it up to whoever’s side of the office you sit on and we’ll give you your Toys For Tots kiddo.”

Ryan finds himself sitting at his usual lunch table with Shane right next to him and Curly, Joyce, and Selorm in the seats around the other sides of them. Shane looks devastatingly soft today; his normal work outfit consists of chinos, a button-up shirt, and styled hair, and while Ryan has always and will always be a fan of that look, today Shane decided to participate in Casual Friday and Ryan really can’t handle that. He’s wearing a well-worn maroon sweatshirt that somehow still manages to swamp Shane’s large frame, a pair of equally well-worn jeans, and his hair is loose and floofy without any of the usual product in it. He even has a little beanie on, and Ryan is maybe having a small, gay crisis. 

It’s probably for the best that the only person he can’t see from his seat is Shane.

“I love writing letters to Santa,” Curly tells them over the sound of Michael Buble’s cover of “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas” and everyone’s chattering. “Even as an adult, I usually help my nieces and nephews and little cousins write them during our family Christmas party. It’s so magical.” 

Selorm grins at him. “I used to write my letter and then drop it off at the mall when I went to take my picture with Santa.” 

“Me too, girl,” Joyce says. Sara drops by their table again to give them some glitter glue, and her eyes light up, hands already reaching to take it. “I always asked him to pretty please read it and he’d laugh his jolly laugh and tell me he’d read it as soon as the could.” 

Ryan starts his letter off simply with just a nice, clean “Dear Santa,” at the top of his green piece of construction paper. He adds to the conversation with: “My brother and I used to go and get our pictures taken together with Santa, and Jake cried for the first three years. Then one year my mom brought our dog with us and let Jake hold her and he didn’t cry once. That’s still our family’s favorite picture of the two of us.” 

“That’s so cuuuute,” Curly croons, and Selorm puts a hand over her heart and sends a touched look Ryan’s way.

They all chat quietly throughout the entire task of writing letters to Santa, mostly about favorite Christmas childhood memories and their favorite parts of the Christmas season in general. Ryan tells them about building forts with Jake on Christmas Eve, Shane tells them about having a neighborhood-wide snowball fight on Christmas Eve, Curly tells them about going to his big family Christmas parties and learning all the family secrets the more he grew up, Joyce talks about going to light shows every year with her family, and Selorm talks about how much fun she always had in elementary school during Christmas with all the crafting and singing and school parties. They eventually move onto talking about what they’re writing to Santa in their letters. 

“‘Dear Santa,’” Curly reads to them. “‘I don’t want a lot this Christmas because I’ve already got a lot of stuff I need and love. Really, at this point in my life, I’d just like to keep that good karma and those good vibes. I’ve been really good this year, so next year, I’d like the lack of drama to stick around. Also, it would be pretty cool if you could give my nieces, nephews, and baby cousins everything they asked for this year because they’ve all been good kids.’ That sounds like a pretty good start, right?”

“That’s so sweet,” Shane tells him sincerely, and Curly winks at him. 

“This is what I’ve got.” Selorm says. “‘Dear Santa Claus: This year has really felt more like Christmas than it has in past years, and that’s pretty cool. I missed feeling like it was actually Christmas time in December the more I’ve grown up. So, that’s what I would like this year, and every year after that: to always have Christmas spirit and feel like it’s Christmas time come December. I always want to feel like Christmas is amazing.’”

“Ooooh, I love that,” Joyce tells her, nodding. “I don’t have a lot yet because I’m working on making this glitter glue look flawless, but here we go. ‘Dear Santa: This year has been pretty amazing and with the good work I’ve been doing, I’ve been able to get some shit I’ve been wanting really badly for a long time, so I hope that takes some stress off of you and your elves. Y’all the realest. The only thing I think I really need is one of those cool Polaroid cameras so I can save more memories this year.’” 

“That was good!” Selorm claps lightly for Joyce’s letter. “It’s so sweet that you were thinking about Santa and the elves. I should put something like that into my letter, too.”

Shane grins at them both, and then turns to hit Ryan lightly on the arm. “What’ve you got so far, Bergara? Anything good?”

Ryan looks over what he has written so far, and nods. “Yeah, I think it’s a good start. Uh, ‘Dear Saint Nick: I’m not really sure who all had a hand in LeBron getting put on the Lakers’ team, but thank you forever if you’re one of those people. I owe you a whole house full of cookies and milk. I’d really like for him to continue bringing tears to my eyes as he takes the Lakers to a God tier level.’”

“Oh my God,” Curly snorts, and Shane laughs and says, “I’m not shocked.” 

Ryan laughs with them and the girls, and after they calm down, he finishes with: “I also would really appreciate it if you could help my brother to get into his super fancy prestige music program at school. He’s a really good kid and really good at what he does, and he deserves to go as high as he can.’”

“Oh,” Curly abruptly stops laughing and gives Ryan an awed look. “Wow, Ryan, you really are a soft little angel under all that Bro Dude thing you’ve got going on. I’m amazed.” 

“Shut up,” Ryan laughs again and tries not to blush. “Everyone and their mom knows I’m a baby.” 

“Uh, no, they don’t.” Curly reaches over and firmly grabs Ryan by one of his biceps. “Not with these they don’t.” 

Ryan plays along and flexes his muscles so that Curly can feel them under his hand, and Curly makes a funny noise that sends the entire table off again. It makes Ryan feel a little bold, for whatever fucking reason, and he turns to Shane and asks him: “Do you want to feel them, too?” 

“I’m good!” Shane laughs at him, but Ryan can see what looks suspiciously like a light flush working its way up Shane’s neck underneath his hoodie. “You can put them away again.”  

“Yeah, it’s Madej’s turn to read his letter, anyways,” Selorm points at them both with a marker. “Stop distracting him. Let’s hear it, buddy.” 

“Alright, alright, sheesh- ‘Dear Mr. Kringle-’” 

“Mr. Kringle!” Ryan repeats, cackling. “Christ.”

“Let me finish!” Shane pokes him with his pen. “‘Dear Mr. Kringle: I think you’re a pretty cool dude, and I admire your work ethic. I love all the movies and music fashioned after your existence, and they’ve made my life great, so thank you for that. I’m a pretty simple guy myself, and I only want one thing for Christmas: for my friends to be happy.” 

The letter goes from Shane’s usual sense of humor to deep in the blink of an eye, and as a result, the four of them just stare at him with the same look Curly gave Ryan after hearing about his brother. 

Shane presses on, unaware. “‘This year was a great one for me, and I got really close to everyone I work with, and I consider all of them my friends. They’re amazing people, and they deserve amazing things. I hope that you bring them something just as special as they are this year to show them how deserving they are of these gifts. I got to go to a lot of great concerts with some of them, like Ryan, Sara, Tania, Curly, Eugene, Joyce, and Steven, and I got to join a book club with Quinta, Sara, Chris, Zach, Annie, and Niki, and I spent countless nights going out with everyone and eating and drinking and making memories.” 

This is where Shane falters a little, gives Ryan a fleeting look from out of the corner of his eye, but then continues. The only reason that Ryan can tell he’s nervous is because he knows everything about Shane inside and out. 

“‘Not to be cheesy, but I think Ryan deserves the most out of anyone I know. He works himself into the ground and still asks for more because he always wants to help everyone out and prove himself. He’s the best person I’ve ever had the honor of becoming friends with, and I think you should give him a little something extra to let him know that he’s a quintessential part of the office and also my life.’” 

Shane ends there, either too embarrassed to continue (even though Ryan’s probably still the only who can tell) or because he has nothing else written, and while Curly, Joyce, and Selorm applaud him and talk about how great it sounds and how awesome Shane is, all Ryan can do is stare. After Shane thanks them and jokes around to clear the serious atmosphere he created, he turns and meets Ryan’s eyes. For the first time ever, Ryan don’t try to hide the complete and all-encompassing love he has for Shane, lets it spread all over his dumbfounded face. 

“I meant it all,” Shane says, quiet enough for only them to hear, and Ryan doesn’t know if Shane is trying to solidify their unbreakable friendship or if this is him confessing to Ryan, but Ryan doesn’t care. He just needs Shane to know that hears him either way. 

“Thank you.” he says back just as quietly. “You’re the greatest person I know, too.” 

Shane smiles at him, a bright, warm smile that Ryan has never seen him give anyone else, and tries not to go into cardiac arrest. 

Their little bubble gets broken when Curly asks if it would be rude to slip in that he kind of wants a new pair of shoes or “for ASOS to have some more sales, Jesus on wheels,” and Ryan says that he deserves it so he should put it, but neither of them are mad about it. Shane still has that dumb smile on his face, and when he hooks a foot around Ryan’s under the table and leaves it there, Ryan’s lips stretch out into an identical smile. 

**_~.~.~_ **

When they’re a little less than halfway into December, Quinta and Sara decide to let them do what might be the most dangerous Christmas-themed activity of all: 

They get to decorate the office. 

“Eugene, Tania, and Selorm really won the higher-ups over with that new script idea, so they gave us a budget for Christmas decorations and told us to go nuts, since we can re-use them next year.” Sara holds up a few bulging bags packed full of whatever she and Quinta decided to buy for them. “We’re gonna put up all of your whiteboards in the middle and block each side of the office from each other, and whichever side looks better wins the statue until next week when we play the next game. Sound good?” 

“There’s no way in  _ hell  _ we are losing this round!” Zach announces, and that basically starts the competition. 

After everyone gets the giant whiteboards-on-wheels they all use for projects set up in the middle of the office and effectively block each other from sight, they get to work. There are four bags full of stuff, but no one can see what’s inside, so Quinta calls on someone to pick a number. 

“To keep it fair! Jen, pick a number.” 

Jen makes a face, shrugs, and says “Three,” without much thought. Sara tells Eugene to pick a bag and he selects number four, so Jen picks number one and Sara’s side is given number two automatically. Quinta takes one and three from Sara and brings it over them behind all of the whiteboards. When she dumps all the decorations out onto the cluster of Steven’s, Andrew’s, and Adam’s desks, a sea of garland, lights, candycanes, tinsel, and even a wreath falls out in front of all of them. 

“This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen with my own two eyes.” Curly whispers, hands hovering over the decorations without touching them. 

Quinta smiles conspiratorially at all of them, does a quick check to make sure everyone on Sara’s side is away from them, and then creeps over to her own desk. She pulls a large tote bag out from underneath it and brings it over to them. 

“Don’t tell Sara,” Quinta says quietly. “But I got us all a little something extra.” 

It turns out to be eleven miniature Christmas trees, one for each of their desks. Everyone thanks Quinta as she hands them out.

“Go set those on your desks and come back. After we get done doing the big decorating, you can all go back and individually decorate these before the big reveal.”

When they’ve all got their little trees set up on their desks, the ten of them regroup and Quinta assigns them tasks. 

“You’re all really creative individuals, so we’re gonna be just fine. I’m going to split you all up into pairs and give you guys something to work with, and whatever it is you decide to do with that thing is on you. As long as we all agree with each other on how it looks, then it’s all good.” 

She separates the different types of decorations into piles, and then starts handing them out. “Alrighty- Ryan and Steven, you two are together because you need to work on your collaboration skills some more.” 

Ryan saw that coming a mile away, so he just sighs deeply and says: “Yes, boss,” without complaining. Steven nudges him in the side and grins wildly at him, and Ryan can’t help but grin back. 

Quinta hands them the strands of garlands in all kinds of colors: red, green, gold, silver, and blue. “You two get the garland. Do with it what you will.” 

She pulls out a couple boxes of lights and hands them to Andrew. “Andrew and Annie, you two deal with the lights. Make sure no one will trip over them, please, or else the execs are going to strangle me.” 

After the lights, Quinta produces some boxes full of candy canes, and hands those off to Jen. “Jen, you and Maycie can hang up candy canes. Feel free to follow after Ryan and Steven and hang it on their garland or whatever you want.” 

She points at Adam and Niki and gestures for them to come closer. “You two get all these random wooden trinket things we found in the clearance aisle. Put them were you want to, as stated before.” 

And then she pulls out the big guns, which ends up being eleven miniature stockings. “Daysha, Curly, you two get the fun job of writing everyone’s names on these and handing them up with Command Strip hooks. We still got some glitter glue from writing letters, so go nuts. But, please, for the love of  _ God _ , write everyone’s real names and write them correctly. You’re not allowed to call Steven and Andrew ‘Finn and Poe.’” She looks at them all individually, and then claps her hands. “Okay, gang, let’s do this. Break!” 

Ryan almost expects them to all split up and do their own things, but Annie immediately moves to make everyone collaborate. “What’s the plan, everyone?” 

They all stare at each other for a few moments, unsure. Then Steven hesitantly raises his hand up and suggests: “Ryan and I can start stringing some garland up along the sides of everyone’s desks, or around the bulletin board. And maybe we can put lights around the garland? And Jen and Maycie can hang up some candy canes off of it?”

“Yeah, and then wherever Daysha and Curly hang up the stockings, we can set up a little figurine thingy on top of the post they hang it off of with some of the extra sticky tabs from the Command strips.” Niki adds in. 

“That sounds perfect!” Maycie enthuses, so they all go off and start setting up their decorations. 

Despite their clashing work ideas, Ryan and Steven are still really good friends, and since hanging up garland together doesn’t trespass into work duties, it goes pretty smoothly. 

“I hope that our side looks beautiful after we’re done with it,” he tells Ryan. They’re winding green and red garland around everyone’s desk poles, and Ryan has to admit that they’re doing pretty well. “Those writers sure do talk a lot of shit.” 

“I agree. We might not be as quick with words but at least we don’t choke each other out at the slightest inconvenience.” 

“Well, I think our side as a whole is pretty good about that. Us two, on the other hand-” 

Steven hip checks him, and then they spend a few minutes laughing hysterically at each other. 

Ryan and Steven slowly work their way around their side of the office, hanging up garland as they go. They use all the red and green up on the desks, and then they hang up the silver, gold, and blue up by the bulletin board. Daysha gives them the idea of braiding the three colors together and it looks great hanging up around the office schedule and notes. Jen and Maycie follow after them with candy canes, and when they run out of both garland and candy canes, they head over to their individual desks to start decorating their mini trees with the tiny ornaments and candy canes Quinta bought all of them. 

When it’s all done, their side of the office looks pretty damn good if Ryan does say so himself. The garland looks pretty with the candy canes hanging off of it and Andrew and Annie’s lights strung up in between both of them. There are nutcrackers, snowmen, and Santas stuck to the tops of their desk poles, and below each one, a green or red stocking hangs with their names on them in glitter glue. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s cute and well put-together. 

“Good job, everyone!” Quinta praises them, surveying the office. While they were busy hanging everything up, she was cutting out and decorating a big “Happy Holidays!” sign and keeping track of the time. With her sign up, their side looks festive as hell and complete. 

She picks up the wreath they got and holds it up for them to see. It’s nice and simple, with a bright red bow at the top center and some silver and red beads nestled in the fake pine. 

“Where should we put this at?”

They look around their side of the office for some inspiration, and then Jen suggests: “How about right above the bulletin board? It’ll look cool with all the lights and garland.” 

“Hell yeah!” Quinta agrees. “Does someone want to hang it up? I don’t think I’ll be tall enough even with the stepladder.” 

Ryan steps forward. “I can get it. I’m the only one who can ever get the damn thing to stay open, anyways.” 

He goes and gets the stepladder out of the supply closet and brings it up to the bulletin board. After he’s got it open and set up, Quinta brings him the wreath and a Command Strip hook and he crawls up to hang it on the wall. 

He’s only in the air for maybe five seconds before the heckling starts. 

“Hey, Bergara, stay down on your side! The hour isn’t up yet!” 

“Chill out, Kornfeld- I’m just hanging up this wreath and then I’ll get down. I’m not even going to look at your side.” 

He gets the strip on the wall and a confirmation that it’s straight from Quinta before the first object hits him in the back. It feels a lot like a pen. 

“Hey!” Ryan shouts, but doesn’t turn away from the wreath, because he knows it’ll end up crooked otherwise. He puts the hook over the strip and presses down like the instructions tell him to. Something else hits him, maybe an eraser. “Stop throwing shit at me! I’ll be done in like two seconds.” 

“Stop being a cheater pants and get off of the ladder then!” 

He uses his right hand to send the middle finger Ned’s way. “Fuck off, Fulmer. I’m almost done. I’m not looking anywhere near your stuff.”

He gets hit by three more things before the wreath is on the hook and not in danger of falling off. 

“Get down, dude!” 

“We get a ten second look at Quinta’s side since Bergara’s had all this time to sneak looks of our decorations!” 

“Big Mouth Bergara’s gonna take the statue from us a third time!” 

When Quinta tells him it’s on and also says: “Stop throwing shit or I’m gonna come over there and throw you all out of the window!” Ryan finally goes to climb off of the stepladder. 

Three things happen at the same time: 1) Ryan goes to put his foot on the first rung, 2) someone from Sara’s side throws a pencil holder at him and gets him right in the ankle, and even though it doesn’t weigh a lot, it still surprises him, so Ryan 3) proceeds to stumble and fall off of the top of the stepladder. 

There’s complete and utter silence as Ryan drops to the ground like a sack of rocks and lands right on his back. He lets out a strangled wheeze and stars explode behind his eyes, and for a few seconds, all he can do is lay on the floor and gasp for air. It surprises him more than it hurts.

And then the room explodes into activity; Quinta and Steven, who are the closest to him, lunge forward and begin to ask him if he’s okay, if he broke anything, if he can understand what they’re saying, if he hit his head and if he might be concussed now. The others on his side rush forward and hover behind them, and Ryan is still seeing stars a little but he can make out the worried looks on their faces. The whiteboards dividing up the room get thrown aside and the others spill out into their part of the office, voices a cacophony of: “Is he okay?” “Is he hurt?” “Who the fuck threw that pencil holder at him?” 

Ryan doesn’t like the feeling of so many eyes on him and Quinta and Steven’s wandering hands touching his shoulders and head. He feels his anxiety skyrocket with everyone looking at him and talking at once, and it doesn’t help the fact that he can’t draw a full breath in through the fuzz in his head. 

Suddenly, like an angel descending from the skies above, a beacon in the darkness, every dream Ryan’s ever had in the dead of night, Shane pushes his way through everyone to get to him. Ryan watches, breathless and his head spinning, as Shane gently maneuvers his way around the others and gets to Ryan’s other side. 

“I’m gonna help you up now, okay?” Shane asks him, speaking quietly but steadily over everyone else’s yelling voices. Ryan is glad that Shane doesn’t ask if he’s okay, knows that Ryan can take a lot before he gives. “On three.” 

Shane holds his hand out and Ryan forces his own to move up to take it. Shane mutters, “One, two,  _ three _ ,” and then pulls Ryan to his feet. Ryan is a little unsteady once he’s vertical, but Shane is right there to ground him and keep him from falling over again.

“I’m taking Ryan to the bathroom to calm down,” Shane tells the others, and it’s enough to get them to clam up. Ryan looks at his feet and focuses on steadying his breathing so that he won’t start hyperventilating. “We’ll be back in a little bit.” 

There’s something off about the way Shane says it, but Ryan’s dizzy and embarrassed, so he stays silent and lets Shane guide him out of the office. They walk slowly down the hall together towards the bathrooms, and the farther they get away from the overcrowded office, the better Ryan feels. 

Once they get into the bathroom, Shane pulls him over towards the sinks and gently turns Ryan to face him. Ryan can stand, but he still can’t breathe right, and he’s a little surprised when Shane takes both of Ryan’s hands and sets them on his sternum, so that Ryan can feel his heart beating and his inhales and exhales. 

“Breathe with me, Ry,” Shane tells him, hands moving to rest by his elbows. “We gotta work together to get your breathing under control so you don’t pass out on me.” 

Ryan’s not sure if his breathing is all screwed up because of the fall or an oncoming panic attack. Regardless of the cause, he does what Shane tells him to and closes his eyes so that he can focus. It takes a handful of breaths, but Ryan is eventually able to synch his breathing up with Shane’s based on the rise and fall of his chest and his exaggerated inhales and exhales. In another situation, Ryan might be giggling at how loud Shane is breathing, but right now it’s the only thing that’s blocking out all of the panic and the voices yelling  _ oh my fuck I can’t believe I fell off of the fucking ladder what the fuck how embarrassing I can’t do anything right what the fuck  _ inside of his brain.

When Ryan is breathing regularly again and what he recognizes was definitely a panic attack finally subsides, he just stands with his eyes closed and regroups. Shane lets him, and doesn’t try to talk to him or ask him if he’s okay, which Ryan appreciates immensely. He just stands with Ryan and lets him keep his hands on his chest and patiently waits for him to talk first. 

Eventually, Ryan opens his eyes and looks all the way up at Shane, who looks concerned, and something else that Ryan really can’t place. 

“Are you okay?” Shane asks, and this time, Ryan doesn’t tense up when he hears the words. 

He nods, patting Shane’s chest with his hands. “Yeah, I’m good now. I just- needed to get away from everyone for a second. All I did was land pretty hardly on my back, but I’m fine. No medical attention needed.” 

Shane’s mouth thins out, and Ryan finally realizes what it is about his face and voice that he couldn’t place before- it’s because Shane is  _ really fucking mad  _ and Ryan has never seen him anything other than happy-go-lucky or ridiculously competitive before in the three years they’ve known each other. 

Ryan doesn’t know how to proceed, so he tries out a tentative: “Shane…?” 

Shane takes a deep breath, and tries to school his features back into something more neutral. “Sorry, I’m just- really upset right now. Who in their right fucking mind thought it was okay to throw something at you while you were on a fucking ladder? I mean, really- I love the people we work with but sometimes they act so goddamn infantile.” 

“Hey, it’s okay, man- I know they were just messing around. I didn’t even see who was throwing stuff at me-” 

“It’s not okay, Ryan! You could have gotten seriously hurt!” Shane’s hands twitch where they’re still resting by Ryan’s elbows, and then they move to rest on Ryan’s shoulders. His fingers curl into Ryan’s sweater in a way that mirrors Shane putting Ryan’s hands on his chest to steady his breathing. A control mechanism. “You could have broken your fucking arm or something, and all over this ‘friendly and healthy’ Christmas competition. Christ alive. In case you couldn’t guess, it was Keith, Ned, and Chris throwing shit at you. I could kick their asses right now.” 

Shane is really starting to get fired up, hands clenching and unclenching on Ryan’s shoulders. Ryan is a weird mixture of shocked, amazed, and humored, but his head is still hurting and he’s still a little disoriented, so he decides that his best plan of action is to get Shane to calm down. 

“Hey, hey,” he interrupts Shane’s angry tirade by sliding his hands up to rest on his best friend’s shoulders. Shane stops mid-sentence and stares at Ryan like a goldfish. “It’s okay, Shane. I’m fine. They didn’t mean for it to happen.” 

“They shouldn’t have been throwing shit at you, though,” Shane tries, but begins to deflate before Ryan’s eyes. 

Ryan wants to kiss him more than anything in the entire world, between his protectiveness over Ryan and the way he didn’t hesitate to pick through their coworkers to get him up and out of their prying eyes and his anger towards them hurting Ryan. But he doesn’t want to kiss Shane for the first (and possibly only) time in their office’s public bathroom, so he does the next best thing.

Ryan loops his arms around Shane’s shoulders and pulls him down into a firm hug. Shane is motionless for a few seconds, clearly taking in this sudden development, but then he gets with the program. His long arms wind around Ryan’s shoulders and he pulls him in even closer, until they’re in a total embrace in the middle of the bathroom. 

They hold each other for a minute, neither speaking or doing anything other than standing silently in their comfortable embrace. Ryan feels most of his anxiety melt away the longer he’s in between Shane’s lean, strong arms and the longer he breathes in the scent of Shane’s skin and his fabric softener. He feels and smells like everything Ryan has come to consider him as: safe, reliable, strong-willed, and comforting. 

He knows that if he doesn’t break it off sooner rather than later that he’s never going to pull away. So, after one last squeeze, Ryan gently detangles himself from their shared embrace and smiles up at Shane, who smiles back. 

“Thank you,” Ryan tells him softly. “Thank you for helping me out. I think I’m okay to go back now.” 

“Are you sure?”

Ryan shrugs. “Well, now’s a good a time as any to go back and use comedy as a way to escape judgement and mothering friends.”

Shane gives him a skeptical look- something Ryan has been used to since the first week they met each other- but doesn’t object. He simply nods and lets Ryan lead them out of the bathroom, a respectable distance between them once more.

Before they reach the office again, Shane makes sure to remind Ryan: “I will actually kill someone with my bare hands if they try to mess with you again today. Just so you know.” 

Ryan doesn’t try to hide his big, dumb smile, and instead of answering Shane, just nudges him in the ribs with an elbow. 

When they walk back into the office together, Ryan is greeted by the sight of Sara’s side being completely absent and then is greeted by the sight of Quinta hustling over. 

“I know you don’t want to be bombarded again, but I gotta know if you’re okay for real this time, Bergara.” She gives him a once-over, hands on her hips. The incessant tapping of her fingers gives away her concern. “You doing okay?” 

Ryan nods. “I’m good now- I just needed to get some air.” 

Quinta nods back, and thankfully, accepts this answer without invading his personal space. “Okay. I’m glad those morons didn’t break anything.” 

“Where’d they all go?” 

At this question, Quinta smiles. “Well, after that sweet trick they pulled, all of them basically got on their knees and begged for forgiveness and said that our team won by forfeit. Fulmer was their ringleader and told us that not only would they give up their chance to win the competition today, but that they’d also all go out and get donuts and coffee for us, so.” 

Ryan really, truly isn’t mad at Ned or Keith or Chris or anyone on Sara’s side of the office, but the image of Ned on his knees makes him laugh. “So they’re all out getting us breakfast because they knocked me off of the ladder?” 

“You bet your ass they are!” Steven yells from his desk, and Ryan notes that he also sounds upset, an emotion that he’s  _ very  _ used to when it comes to Steven. 

From behind Ryan, Shane starts to laugh a little, too. “That’s a relief. I thought I was going to have to come back and pull a Mr. Vernon. Crack some skulls.” 

Now that Quina knows Ryan is okay, she focuses her attention on the only remaining member of Sara’s side of the office. “You’re exempt from it, Madej, if you couldn’t guess already. Since you’re the only one who kept their head when it happened.” 

Shane looks like he disagrees with that statement, but nods all the same. “I mostly did it to get Ryan away from Ned before I broke his neck.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “You guys act like I’ve never taken a tumble before. You should have seen me when I was a kid.” 

“Yeah, that story about you falling into a pile of bricks and blacking out a little? Is that what you’re talking about?” Shane raps on the top of Ryan’s head with a knuckle. “That means your noggin is prone to damage. We gotta keep it in top shape.” 

Ryan just sighs and tries not to smile too wide. He grabs onto Shane’s hand, where it’s still positioned over his head, and leads him over to his and Steven’s desks. “Let’s take it easy for a bit, big guy, before you go full Wolverine on me.” 

After Steven and the others on Ryan’s side of the office make sure he’s okay and not concussed, they pretty much leave him alone and let him have his space, which Ryan is eternally grateful for. Shane pulls his desk chair over from Sara’s side and sits with Ryan and Steven while they chit chat and go over some of their projects. Shane will add in his thoughts on the projects or the conversation, and Ryan probably used up all of his touchy feely talk in the bathroom, but he really wants Shane to know that his presence at Ryan’s desk is much appreciated. Even though all eyes are off Ryan and everyone is back to their normal routines, he still feels a little shaken and embarrassed, and Shane’s strong, quiet presence at his side helps to keep Ryan from freaking out again. 

Some odd amount of time later, they’re in the middle of a conversation about whether or not anyone can actually taste the difference in water (“That seems like fake news,” Ryan tells them, and Steven actually scoffs and tells Ryan: “Sorry you have such a barbaric palate and can’t tell the difference between purified and spring water, God help your poor soul.”) when the others return. Everyone from Sara’s side of the office tumbles in, their arms laden with donut bags and drink carriers housing twenty different cups of coffee. 

“We have returned with the Sorry Spoils.” Ned announces, as they all go to set the food and drinks down on the break tables in the back. 

Everyone on Quinta’s side saves their shit and then get up to go grab their coffee and donuts. Steven and Shane flank Ryan on their way over to the break tables, and while he thinks he should maybe feel kind of squeamish about them making such a big deal of it, Ryan is actually incredibly grateful for the support, and he lets them know by subtly giving each of their wrists a quick squeeze. 

Shane and Steven quietly look for their stuff, giving Ned their sincere but stiff thanks, but before Ryan can try and find his, Keith stops him and holds out a hand. 

“For you, Ryan, whomst we almost causedith breakage upon.” 

“What?” Ryan asks, laughing despite his nerves. “I honestly have no idea what you just said.” 

Instead of replying, Ned and Chris bring over a donut bag that is larger than everyone else’s, and a very fancy-looking coffee. They hand each to him with fanfare, even going as far as to bow to him after he takes his food. Inside of the bag is a giant bear claw donut, the kind that Ryan always fantasizes about buying but never does because of the price and the exorbitant amount of calories. His coffee smells like something pepperminty, in theme with the winter season, and again, is something he’d never buy for himself because of the price and calories.

He stares at the three, a little touch and a little pleased. “Wow. Thanks guys! These look and smell amazing.” 

“You deserve it,” Chris tells him, solemnly. It sounds weird coming out of his mouth in that tone of voice, and Ryan wants it to stop immediately. “For what we did to you.” 

Ryan really, truly does feel fine, even with the lying-and-waiting nerves, and he just wants this all the blow over and be forgotten about. So he just laughs and pulls Keith into a hug; when Keith gives him a nice, big hug back, Ryan slaps him on the back and turns to give Ned a hug, and then Chris. 

“It was just a little fun. I know you guys didn’t mean to do it on purpose. But I’m fine now, and I’d really love to just fuckin’ move on, you know?

They all nod at him hesitantly, like they can’t believe Ryan is going to forgive them so easily and just move on with his day. 

So Ryan puts his hands on his hips, a nice copy of Quinta from when he came back from the bathroom, and looks at the three of them sternly. 

“But we’re not gonna throw things at people on ladders anymore, right?” 

“Right!” the three are quick to agree with him. 

“Good, it’s all settled then.” Ryan takes a finalizing bite out of his bear claw and groans appreciatively. “This is the single greatest moment of my life.” 

Just like that, the three of them are laughing again and looking like themselves, and the weird tension in the office dissipates. No one else sneaks concerned looks over Ryan, and Shane stops glaring the three guys who knocked Ryan over. It’s all back to normal. 

Well, minus the fact that Ryan can’t stop thinking about Shane’s angry and weirdly hot face, or the fact that he wants to back Shane into the nearest wall and climb him like a fucking tree. To distract himself from those relatively NSFW thoughts, Ryan holds his bear claw up towards Shane’s now-relaxed face. 

“Want a bite? For rescuing me?” 

Shane snorts, but takes a bite anyways. “Only because I don’t want you to threaten my life if I refuse you.” 

Ryan pokes him in the chin with his pinkie, and Shane laughs around a mouthful of donut, and yeah, it all feels back to normal now. Teasing Shane, Shane teasing him back, Ned, Keith, and Chris raising a little hell around them, and Ryan wondering if he’ll ever pull the courage to tell Shane he’s deeply, madly, absolutely in love with him out of his scaredy cat asshole.  

**_~.~.~_ **

After that, the fire behind the competition mellows out into something more playful. Everyone remembers Ryan almost breaking his back in half when they gather into for another game, something that’s kind of like  _ The Polar Express _ version of the mafia game. Someone gets to be Santa and they go through a series of steps to find out who is going to be chosen to receive the first gift of Christmas. There’s some hollering, some friendly banter, but it never reaches the level of desperation that their games did before Ryan fell off of the ladder. 

It seems like they’ve all really come together to enjoy the Christmas spirit, and this newfound holiday season joy shows itself particularly well when they all decide to push the break tables together for gingerbread house making. It’s a little crooked because their tables are circular, and they’re not allowed to use icing in the conference room, but it works. It’s nice to be able to see everyone’s faces while they sing along to more Christmas music or trade jokes and stories and everyone can laugh and add in their pieces. 

Ryan’s sitting at his usual table with Shane next to him (as always, forever and infinity) and Annie on his other side. All twenty two of them are crammed together at their break tables and in various states of constructing their houses. 

“I can already see how this is going to go,” Ryan tells Shane, and points at his slightly crooked house. “I can’t even get the foundations right, so how am I supposed to get the rest of it right?” 

“You know how!” Shane brandishes a piping bag full of white icing like it’s a sword, and declares: “Lots and lots of frosting!” 

“I don’t think so,” Annie says slowly, but doesn’t try to stop Shane when he begins to slather his gingerbread house walls in icing and shoves them together.

Ryan and Shane spend most of their time making fun of each other and their gingerbread houses. As the Christmas carols continue to play, and they engage in some light banter with their friends, the two of them find more often than not that they’re picking on each other’s decorating skills. 

“What the fuck is that?” Ryan asks him, using a mini candy cane to point at Shane’s house. “That looks like Rudolph took a red shit right on the roof.” 

“Leave me alone, Picasso,” Shane laughs, trying and failing to spread the sudden mess of red icing around on the roof of his house. “It’s supposed to look festive.” 

“That looks like a five year old did it.” 

“Says the person whose gumdrops are still falling off- off of the windowsill, too, not even the roof. Dumbass.

“The green icing isn’t as good of an adhesive as the white icing is. It’s not my fault that white gets all the benefits.” 

Towards the middle of the tables, Joyce snorts and says, “Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth.” 

They continue to build their houses with lots of icing, candy, and commentary to go around. Sometimes, Ryan will stick a random gumdrop onto Shane’s house somewhere it doesn’t belong and Shane will retaliate by sticking a gummy bear onto his somewhere it doesn’t belong. Their gingerbread houses are actually quite hideous, but Ryan loves them anyways, between all of the crooked walls and misshapen walkways up to the front door and the sloppily placed candy bits and ugly globs of icing. Next to theirs, Annie’s looks like the Sistine Chapel, with neat, even walls and neat, even rows of icing, and well-placed candy pieces. 

“Ours have character,” Ryan sniffs at her, when Annie points out that Ryan’s and Shane’s houses look like they’re one winter storm away from collapsing. “Yours looks like a- well-” 

“A cookie cutter house!” Shane yells, and then flings an M&M right at Annie’s front door. It sticks for a few seconds, and then lands on the licorice welcome mat with a dull  _ thunk _ . “There, now it has some dimension.” 

“Actually, now it looks like there’s a package to be delivered, so thanks, Shane. You actually did manage to make it look better.” 

Shane makes a noise that vaguely resembles a fart and goes back to desecrating his poor gingerbread house. 

“Is anyone actually going to win the statue from this?” Ryan wonders out loud, doing his best to get two mini candy canes to stand up at the front of his house. They both fall over again within seconds. 

“I hope not, because you sure aren’t doing our sides any favors with that flaming pile of shit, Bergara.”

Ryan flips Daysha off without looking away from his house. 

“That house looks like you built it right at the center of Tornado Alley.” 

“Fuck off, TJ.” The circular peppermint candy he stuck above the front door falls off and hits the table with another audible  _ thunk  _ sound. He sounds less sure of himself when he says, “It has character.” 

“It probably has termites.” Eugene stage-whispers, and dodges the gumdrop Ryan chucks at him with a loud laugh. 

The decorating goes on for another good twenty minutes before anyone gets close to being done. Shane and Ryan pretty much give up on making their houses look presentable and stick gumdrops, M&Ms, peppermints, Hershey Kisses, and Mike & Iks wherever their hearts desire, no matter the consequences. At one point, they decide a better use of their time would be to try and catch as many pieces of candy in their mouths as they can, and it goes well for all of about thirty seconds before a Mike & Ike, sticky with blue frosting, lands in Niki’s hair and she threatens to Hulk smash their houses. 

The contest is won as soon as they all hear: “Man, are you fucking kidding me?” come from Andrew. They all turn to look at him and whatever caused the note of distress. 

“What?” Jen asks, piping bag flopping onto her arm.

Andrew splutters for a second, and then flings his arm to the right, where Tania is sitting. “Look at their fucking houses. There’s no way in hell anyone else had a chance.” 

They all wait for Tania to turn her house around, and are surprised when Eugene and Zach turn theirs around, too. Tania’s house is a beautiful array of the colors of the rainbow- both sides of the roof look like what is obviously the rainbow flag, and the colors are placed on a smaller scale around her door and the path leading up to her door. Next to her house is Zach’s, and his house looks almost exactly the same as Tania’s, but only with blue, pink, and purple. And next to his is Eugene’s, which also looks similar but with pink, yellow, and blue. 

“You guys did pride colors,” Curly cooes, looking sadly down at his not-gay gingerbread house. “That’s such a good idea. I’m gonna cry.” 

Ryan stares at their beautiful houses for a moment, and then he gets up from the table without a word. The statue was given to him by Annie the day they had coffee and donuts, after the falling off of the ladder situation. It’s sitting proudly next to his laptop, and he grabs it, looking down at it forlornly but with acceptance, as well. He brings it back to the tables and sets it down next to the trio’s gingerbread houses. 

“I think this rightfully goes to you,” Ryan tells them solemnly, and Sara’s side of the office begins to cheer: “Yay for gay!” over and over again. 

“You sure about that, Ryan?” Quinta asks, but doesn’t look like she disagrees. “That can’t be undone.” 

Ryan puts a hand on his chest and tells her seriously: “Neither can the way that display moved my big, bisexual heart.” 

That makes his side laugh, despite them all losing the statue, and the matter is settled. 

“That was so chivalrous of you,” Shane tells him, once he’s settled back in his seat.

Ryan pokes him with a candy cane and grins nice and wide. “I did it for your big, bisexual heart.”

Shane’s smile is just as wide, and maybe a little flattered, and Ryan goes back to pretending to fix his house up so that he won’t kiss that smile off Shane’s big, bisexual mouth. 

They’re all putting the finishes touches on their houses when Chris pipes up from the other end of the table. “I’m glad that Bergara acknowledged our team’s artistic talent without a second thought. None of you guys would have been able to come with something so tender, so simply honest and centered around our best friends in advertisement: pathos and ethos.”

Ryan stares at Chris flatly, and then, without faltering, takes the white icing out of Shane’s hands and uses it to write out “I ♡ dick” on the roof of his gingerbread house. 

“There,” Ryan says decidedly, and holds his house up for all to see. “Take that, Chris. Check and mate.” 

The way the whole office loses their shit is more than enough repayment for Ryan having to defile his already-unsavable gingerbread house. 

**_~.~.~_ **

Ryan can agree that all of the Christmas-themed games and activities they get to do throughout the month has been really fun, and made them all even closer to each other, but he’s more than ready for his favorite night of the year to arrive: 

The annual office Christmas party. 

Which will always beat out any games they play or any arts and crafts Quinta and Sara make up for them to participate in, as far as he’s concerned. 

Since everyone has a handful of projects to finish up before the end of the year and people are going to start leaving for their vacations, they hold the party on the Friday before Christmas. There’s nothing more satisfying to Ryan than leaving work on a Friday afternoon, looking like a tired advertisement creator, and coming back that same Friday night, looking like he belongs on the red carpet.

Except for this year, he’ll be coming back looking cleaned up in a cozy, ugly-as-all-get-out Christmas sweater. One that conveniently matches Shane’s, since it had been Shane’s idea for them to get matching Grinch and Max sweaters, and whatever Shane wants he shall receive. Because Ryan was the one to bring up the topic of them being Grinches first, he gets the honor of wearing the Grinch sweater, and Shane gets to walk along beside him with Max’s happy, floppy face all over his sweater. 

“Do you think there’ll be a competition for who has the best ugly sweater on?” Shane asks him on the ride up to the office. There’s a whole elevator for them to spread out in and instead of doing that, they’re standing half an inch away from each other. 

“If there is, we better fucking win it or we’re quitting and getting hired at the company down the street.” 

Shane laughs and tips his head back against the wall. He looks beautiful in the soft gold lighting of the elevator.

When they get off of the elevator and make their way into the office, they’re glad to find that they’re not the first ones or the last ones. Keith, Ned, Eugene, and Zach are all together, as expected, along with Quinta, Sara, Chris, Steven, Andrew, and Adam. On the way over to them, Ryan takes in the office in all its decorated glory. On top of the decorations they all hung up the previous week, Sara and Quinta have lined all of their gingerbread houses up along the counter that’s usually used to hold their lunches to give the office a personal touch. They’ve also set up the Christmas tree they use every year to stick their Toys for Tots donations under, and the wrapped bin they put their White Elephant gifts into for each other. The entire office looks bright and cozy, and it brings a smile to Ryan’s face. 

After Ryan and Shane put their gifts for their Toys for Tots kids under the tree and their White Elephant gifts into the bin, they make their way over to the small cluster of coworkers gathered in the center of the office. 

“Hey, I’m glad you two are here,” Andrew says, waving them closer. “We need your input.” 

“For what?” Ryan asks dubiously. He is suddenly thrown back to the weird and mildly uncomfortable conversation they all had last year about standing versus sitting while wiping. “If it has anything to do with my ass, I’m leaving.” 

“Relax,  _ bro,” _ Steven slings an arm around Ryan’s shoulders and pulls him in. “We’re just debating on which Christmas movie is better: _ A Christmas Story or Elf.”  _

Shane snorts. “Is that even a fucking question?” 

“Apparently!” Steven gestures at the other side of the circle. “Some chumps here have no taste, I guess.” 

_ “Elf  _ is clearly the superior holiday film!” Zach declares. “I’m Jewish and I still love the shit out of that movie.” 

“I agree, although I’m not Jewish,” Keith adds. 

“You’re high.” Ryan tells them, shaking his head.  _ “A Christmas Story  _ is the pinnacle of Christmas films. A classic.  _ The  _ classic.” 

Zach frowns.  _ “Elf  _ has Zoey Deschanel in it!” 

“Yeah, but  _ A Christmas Story  _ has literally everything else in it.” 

“That’s not an argument, Ilnyckyj.” 

“It’s not an argument, Kornfeld, that’s just a fucking fact.” 

The argument grows as the remainder of their coworkers show up, until all twenty two of them are present and have moved on from whether  _ A Christmas Story  _ or  _ Elf  _ is better to presenting and contemplating various theories about  _ The Polar Express.  _ For a group that’s so big, they’re surprisingly good at letting everyone speak their opinion and letting them finish their thought before annihilating it or hyping it up. 

Sara lets it go on for a handful of minutes before she cuts them off. 

“Alright, alright, there’ll be more time to talk about why Tom Hanks voiced literally every single character in  _ The Polar Express  _ later. You guys already talk about this shit during the week- it’s time for some party games, people!” 

Before they disperse for the first activity, Andrew playfully glares over at Tania and says: “This isn’t over.” Tania responds by making a rude gesture that causes even Curly to blush. 

The first thing that everyone is told to do is grab their desk chairs and wheel them to the space in between each side of the office- except for Keith, Ned, Eugene, and Zach. The remainder of them do as they’re told, until all of their desk chairs are in the aisle and they’re all facing the front wall of the office. 

“To begin our wonderful night of holiday cheer and good spirits,” Sara says, gesturing at where the other four are standing in front of the rest of them. “We are going to have these lovely chaps perform a dramatic reading of  _ The Night Before Christmas _ for us all.” 

They all give the four a round of applause, and settle in to watch the story play out. Quinta is the one who reads from the actual book of  _ The Night Before Christmas,  _ and Ned, Keith, Eugene, and Zach all respond to each line that she reads aloud. Ned acts out the dad, Keith acts out Santa Claus, and Eugene and Zach fluctuate between acting out the mice, the children, and Santa’s reindeer when they pull him through the winter night. Ryan spends the entire story trying not to laugh too loudly, most of them successfully smothered into his palm, and exchanging humored expressions with Shane. If there’s one thing that they can all agree on in the office, it’s that the four acting out  _ The Night Before Christmas  _ were born to be actors, no matter how obnoxious or dramatic. 

When the story concludes with Keith yelling: “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!” out into the office, they all clap, cheer, and whistle for the foursome. They link arms and bow, a giant mess of big grins and tacky, glittery Christmas sweaters. 

After the applause dies down, Quinta stands up from her chair and announces: “Alright, everyone, get the chairs into a big circle. It’s time for… the White Elephant gift exchange!” 

They all start cheering again and are quick to put their chairs into the circle that Quinta requests. Ryan ends up facing Maycie, who gives him a big thumbs up across the circle, and Jen, who does a small fist raise to show how pumped she is.

When Shane gets his chair settled, he leans in close to Ryan and tells him: 

“I really hope you get my gift, Ry- it’s a good one.” 

Ryan is in such good spirits and feels so full of love for everyone in the room that he accidentally turns to Shane, as well, and asks: “Is it a nice kiss on the lips?”

Shane’s humored look turns from surprised to amazed and back to humored all in the span of about five seconds. Ryan spends those five seconds staring at Shane like a moron, trying to think of literally anything that will get him out of the hole he just flung himself into, but Quinta calling for the room’s attention saves him from potentially damaging their friendship further. 

The way Shane grins at his lap and taps Ryan’s ankle with the tip of his shoe also helps a little. 

“Okay, folks, this is gonna go the way it did last year: you all pick a number out of the Santa hat, and then we go through everyone one by one. You either unwrap a new gift, or you steal someone else’s gift and they unwrap a new one.”

While Quinta goes through the circle and lets everyone draw a number, Sara pushes the bin full of their presents over. She gets stuck halfway down the aisle, and after requesting some help, Shane is quick to jump up and assist her.

“Yuck it up,” she tells them when they all laugh at her. “I’m the one reporting your work ethic to the higher-ups. I’d be careful if I was you.” 

They immediately break out into a chorus of: “We’re so sorry, master, please forgive us,” and “We take it all back, please don’t get us fired during the holidays.” Sara nods and gives them all a final stare before taking her seat next to Quinta and accepting the last number in the Santa hat. 

When they’re all settled and ready to start, Quinta says, “Alright, number one! It’s your time to shine!” 

Keith gets out of his seat with a little wiggle and goes to survey the gifts on the floor. He stares for a little bit, and then selects a long rectangular box with elves all over the wrapping paper. They all watch, enthralled, as he tears into the wrapping paper and pulls out- 

“Oooh, it’s one of those mini Bluetooth speakers you can suction cup to your shower wall. So you never have to go a shower without singing along to the hit album  _ The Fame  _ by Lady Gaga.” Keith shows them all the box, and then winks. “Thanks to whichever good soul bought this.” 

“Me!” Daysha says, putting her hands under her chin. “A quiet shower is a shower wasted, in my opinion.” 

“Alright, number two!” Quinta calls out, and they all watch as Annie gets to her feet and walks up to the gifts.

She ends up getting this gimmicky game called “Potty Putter” which allows the user of the toilet to play putt putt golf while also pooping. Ryan expects for her to hate the obviously gag-gift, but Annie ends up holding it close to her chest and saying, “This is the single greatest thing I’ve ever received in my life.” 

They continue down the line (Andrew gets a new french press coffee maker, Maycie ends up with a  _ huge _ candle and some bath salts, Joyce ends up with a swear word adult coloring book and a thirty pack of colored pencils) and it doesn’t start to get dicey until number six goes- Ned- and then number seven- Chris. 

Ned ends up unwrapping a new expansion pack for  _ Cards Against Humanity,  _ the brand new one that features three hundred new cards. His entire face lights up and he shows the room his prize with lots of bouncing involved. 

“Holy shit! This is sold out everywhere! Thank you, thank you, thank you to whoever got their fucking hands on this.” 

“You’re welcome,” Zach spreads his hands out. “And you bet your ass I bought one for myself too.” 

And then it’s Chris’ turn. He hesitates when he stands up, and stares at the presents for a little bit longer than Keith did. Ryan has a funny feeling in his stomach as he watches Chris stand and ponder, and it only worsens when Chris looks up from the pile, looks at Ned, and marches over to him. 

“No, no, no, no, no!” Ned yells, and tries to wheel away from Chris. Chris gets ahold of the back of Ned’s chair and keeps him in place while he tries to get Ned to release the  _ Cards Against Humanity _ expansion. “I worked for this! This is high treason!” 

“This is the game!” Chris cackles, and then finally gets the box from Ned. “And I worked harder stealing it from you that you did to get it in the first place.” 

Chris takes his seat again, and Ned stares forlornly at the present pile. Keith, Zach, and Eugene start singing a rendition of “O Tannenbaum” for Ned’s loss and let it play out while he selects a new present. It ends up being one of those fancy handheld vacuums that are good for pet owners, and Ned mumbles out a less-than-enthusiastic “Thanks.” for it. 

The next person to go is Tania, and she doesn’t even hesitate to make her way over to Chris, infamous evil grin all over her face. 

“Hey!” Chris yells when she starts to take it from him. “I actually worked hard for this, unlike Fulmer! I’ll fight you to the death for it!” 

“As if,” Tania laughs, and uses one hand to press Chris against the back of his seat and the other to neatly pluck the expansion pack out of his hand. “I’m almost as tall as Keith and Shane, and you’re on level with Ryan and Zach. I suggest you just let me walk away.” 

“Hey!” Ryan yells, and then Zach yells: “That sounded a lot like a short joke!”

Tania pins her evil grin on them. “You’d be correct, gentlemen. I don’t recall stuttering.” 

The next person to go is Jen, and she looks like she’d rather fight a bear than try and take the expansion pack from Tania, so she goes for a new gift. It ends up being the gift that Ryan brought- a nice little rechargeable neck massager that also heats up, and one of those jumbo sized candy canes, to be festive.

“Bergara, you really know a way to a girl’s heart.” Jen tells him, clutching her gifts to her chest. 

“And to a certain boy’s,” Curly sing-songs, but doesn’t elaborate, even when Ryan glares at him and threatens to throw cookies at his beautifully hideous sweater. 

They continue down the line; Selorm ends up with a really cute sloth mug full of teabags and a scuba diver-shaped tea infuser for loose leaf tea; Steven gets some cryptid kitchen essentials: a soup ladle in shape of the Loch Ness Monster, a salt and pepper shaker shaped like Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman, and a set of Mothman snack bowls; Eugene ends up getting a new blanket that’s a deep grey color and a plushie shaped like a cracked egg, which he absolutely loves; and TJ unwraps a calendar that says  **_GOOD FUCKING LUCK_ ** across the front of it, and a small bottle of Fireball that is, apparently, supposed to go with it. 

“How did you know?” he asks the room tonelessly, and Shane and Ryan end up leaning against each other because they’re laughing so hard. Eugene announces it was his gift, and exactly nobody is surprised.

Then it’s Ryan’s turn. He’s really, really tempted to go for Steven’s cryptid kitchenware, since he’s obsessed with cryptids (much to Shane’s amusement), but something in his gut tells him to pick a new gift out. He gives the remaining gifts a good look-over, trying to figure out which one his instincts are telling him to pick, when he sees it- the only present with bears all over it. He doesn’t even know if it’s Shane’s, but the teddy bears are telling him yes, and he selects it without another thought. 

When he sits in his seat again, he can see Shane’s white-knuckled grip on his own chair, and knows that he picked right. Ryan unwraps it carefully, and gasps a little because of the absolutely wonderful sight that greets him. 

It’s a fancy little silicone microwave popcorn popper, one that actually looks like an old-fashioned bucket of popcorn. Inside of the popper is a selection of candy that anyone could like, but Ryan likes especially, and a little stuffed bear holding a candy cane. 

“This is incredible,” Ryan whispers, and feels like he might actually cry a little. Shane laughs, but when Ryan glances up at him, he can tell that his best friend is a little relieved and a lot preening from his reaction. “You’re one slick son of a bitch, you know that?” 

“That’s me!"

Their coworkers start up a round of “There goes Ryan and Shane again, the famous cheesters,” and “Just kiss already, Jesus H. Christ,” but Ryan hardly hears them, too busy gaping down at his gift and then back up at Shane. 

“The next person just needs to go and get us out of the line of fire,” Quinta announces. “And no one’s allowed to take Bergara’s gift or he’ll either cry or Madej will end your life.” 

They try to protest, but it falls on deaf ears as their friends unanimously agree to leave Ryan’s present alone. He’s secretly (or probably not so secretly) glad for it. 

Quinta ends up getting a Sephora gift card tucked inside of a cute makeup bag shaped like lipstick; Sara gets a ceramic T-Rex cookie jar and the ingredients to make homemade no-bake cookies; Zach wins an amazing-looking  _ Star Wars  _ version of Monopoly that everyone oohs and aahs at, and because Zach has some of the best puppy dog eyes in the office, he gets to keep it; Curly ends up with some super cool shark socks, a bath bomb that’s “Deep Sea” scented, and a little shark soap holder where the soap goes into the shark’s mouth; Shane ends up with a hideous Guy Fieri tie, a book of dad jokes, and a coffee mug that says “I’m a fungi” with a mushroom right underneath it; Daysha ends up with a red electric blanket and some Hershey Kisses (“For  _ those  _ nights, if you know what I mean,” Selorm tells her. “You know, when you voluntarily watch  _ Titanic _ .”); Selorm gets an iguana tape dispenser for her desk and poisonous tree frog slippers that Sara says she can wear in the office if she wants to; Adam gets a floor mat that says  **GO AWAY** in huge block letters and a set of coasters that say  **DON’T BE A FUCKING ANIMAL** , which- who better to go to than Adam Bianchi?; and, finally, Niki gets a Dunder Mifflin sign to hang up by her desk and her very own Dundie award proclaiming that she’s the best bullshitter in the office.

“That was amazing, everyone!” Sara tells them, grinning. “Everyone’s gifts were perfect this year.” 

“Especially Shane’s gift for Ryan!” Tania teases, and Ryan points a finger at her. 

“You shut your mouth, Satan. At least you all agreed to let me have it, and I didn’t scare everyone away so that I could keep my gift. Zero out of ten Christmas spirit.” 

Tania’s big response back is to stick her tongue out at Ryan, and then flounce away to open up her expansion pack and look through it. 

After everyone sets their gifts down at their desks, they head to the break tables for some food. Sara and Quinta got them catering from the same amazing Mexican restaurant as they did last year, and everyone makes their tacos, burritos, and nachos while joking and teasing each other. There’s a nice lull in party activities while they all eat and drink with each other; Ryan stays right next to Shane, just like they always do, and gets sucked back into the discussion on theories about  _ The Polar Express.  _ The conversation flows freely from the theories to everyone’s favorite Christmas movie and why, to their favorite part of Christmas, to the best gift they’ve ever received, and so forth. Ryan finds it easy to lose track of time, and just sits back and enjoys his food and the company.

Once they’re all full and pleasantly buzzed, Sara tells them that they took a page out of the book from  _ The Office  _ and decided to introduce something new this year. 

“We’re gonna give Christmas karaoke a shot!” 

The group of them are tipsy and comfortable enough to agree without whining, and Shane and Keith make an attempt to help Sara set up the projector and the karaoke program she found. The rest of the them watch the trio work, and when Sara clicks on “Silent Night” to test it out, and it starts working immediately, they all let out some cheers and some excited whoops. 

The end results are, of course, absolutely hysterical. The more songs they sing, the more drinks people have, until everyone it a little more than buzzed and the laughter is coming more freely than ever. Shane and Tania somehow,  _ somehow,  _ are able to bully TJ in singing a threeway version of “Frosty the Snowman” with them, and when they’re done, Ryan’s chest feels like someone’s been squeezing it in between both of their fists; Selorm and Joyce sing a beautiful duet of “White Christmas” together that leaves everyone a little nostalgic and a little dewy-eyed; Steven and Andrew sing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” together, and Steven pitches his voice up higher than necessary to impersonate the female singer, which makes everyone crack up again; Eugene goes up to sing an exaggerated version of “Blue Christmas” that actually ends up sounding pretty good, and he gets better the more they encourage him to be jazzy. 

Shane, after some more drinks and a lot of songs, turns to Ryan and asks him: 

“Wanna sing some Mariah Carey with me, little guy?” 

Ryan blinks at him, drink halfway to his mouth. “As in,  _ All I Want For Christmas is You?” _

“Duh.” 

“Of course, dude. Who the fuck do you take me for?  _ Not  _ your best friend?”

So, Shane and Ryan get up and sing “All I Want For Christmas is You” for all of their coworkers to see, and while it sounds pretty terrible, Ryan still thinks it’s absolutely magical. His eyes hardly leave Shane’s the entire time they sing together, even with all of the catcalls going on and the intensity of Shane’s gaze. They giggle and sing their way through the whole song, and even dance together a little, much to the delight of their coworkers.

It’s not flawless in any way, shape, or form, but when they sing their last note together and their coworkers start whistling and cheering, Ryan thinks it was pretty fucking perfect. 

After they karaoke themselves out, Quinta puts Christmas music on in the background and they all go back to snacking and talking. It’s getting late, and they’ll have to shut the party down pretty soon, but for now everyone is perfectly content with drinking more than they should and eating more cookies than they should and having a grand ol’ time. 

A few people are getting tipsy enough to be borderline drunk, and it shows in the redness on their faces and the permanent smiles on their mouths. Ryan’s talking to Curly, Eugene, Zach, Jen, and Joyce, and Curly and Zach have resorted to leaning on each other and laughing every time they accidentally talk at the same time. A little ways away from them, Andrew is clinging onto Steven and swaying back and forth unsteadily, and Steven is letting him, indulging in him even. 

So Ryan is pretty unsurprised when someone turns out to be drunk enough to trip. He’s explaining why he thinks Peter and Ned should probably start dating each other in the latest reboot of _ Spider-Man _ movies when he hears someone curse loudly enough to distract him. 

“Oh, shit!” 

Ryan turns to see what’s wrong and is immediately gifted with the sight of Ned mid-trip and his eggnog going straight for Ryan’s sweater. 

After it splashes all over the Grinch and starts to soak into his skin and the top of his jeans, Ryan just stands in silence and takes it all in. Ned is staring at him in shock, along with the rest of their friends, and Ryan is wondering if he should just kill Ned to get it over with or accept his fate. 

“I’m so sorry,” Ned whispers finally, hands opening and closing around his now-empty glass. “I tripped over the leg of a table, and… you know.”

Ryan takes a deep breath and lets it out through his nose. “Why is it always me? Why is it always  _ you, _ for that matter.” 

“If I wasn’t married, I’d say that maybe the universe is trying to tell us something.” 

Ryan stares at him flatly. “Yeah, it’s trying to tell us that you’re a fucking fool.” 

Ned makes some weird movement, maybe meant to convey  _ What can you do, you know?  _ and then goes to grab Ryan some napkins. While Ryan tries to unsuccessfully dry off his sweater, Ned flees to hide behind Keith and Chris, much to their amusement. 

It’s clear that Ryan is pretty much screwed, and he throws the used napkins onto the nearest table with a huff. This is when Shane comes up to him and offers something that Ryan has only imagined in the dead of night.

“Hey, you want to borrow my sweater?” 

Ryan looks up at him. “What?” 

“You want to borrow my sweater, since Ned decided to  _ Glee  _ yours up?” Shane points at his very dry sweater, in case Ryan still doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “I’ve got a shirt on under here.” 

Ryan wishes he could say the same. 

“Are you sure?” Ryan asks weakly; he’s afraid that he might pop a boner if he wears Shane’s clothes, but he’s more bothered by the fact that he can feel eggnog seeping into his belly button. “What if Ned gets eggnog on it?”

Shane shrugs. “Then we’ll be even, just like we always are. ‘Sides, they’ll probably kick us all out in less than hour. I don’t mind.” 

Ryan chews on his bottom lip for a few seconds, and then nods without really thinking about it. “Yeah, okay. You’re the best.” 

Shane winks at him (which does nothing to help Ryan’s impending boner) and proceeds to strip the sweater off where he stands. He hands it over without another word, and Ryan takes it with shaking hands. It’s soft, and warm, and smells like Shane’s cologne, and Ryan is already really, really fucked, probably. 

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom and change,” Ryan tells him, and then basically runs from the room. He doesn’t even stop when Daysha calls out after him: “Aw, Bergara, you’re depriving us a chance to see those abs you work so hard for? Usually you try to show us whenever you can.” 

Ryan makes quick work of pulling his soiled sweater off and doing a half-assed washing job on his stomach, where most of the eggnog sept through. He then takes a moment to steel himself, and then pulls Shane’s sweater on over his head. The warmth and smell of it fall over him like one of the blankets Shane always has slung over the back of his couch, and it makes something warm drop into the pit of Ryan’s stomach. Because he’s alone, and because he has zero self restraint, he lifts the collar of the sweater up over his nose and inhales, breathing in Shane’s familiar, comforting scent. He stops when the stirring in his stomach turns from pleasant to sharp. He’s more than a little embarrassed at the thought of wearing Shane’s sweater in front of all of their friends; mostly because even though Ryan is bigger everywhere else, Shane is  _ way _ taller than he is, so the sweater still reaches down to the middle of his thighs. He has to roll the sleeves up a few times so that they don’t cover his hands, and the collar of the sweater will droop down and expose his shoulder if he moves the wrong way. 

It’s really inconvenient, but also a wonderful alternative to smelling like eggnog and rum all night, so Ryan silently accepts that this is going to happen and forces himself to leave the bathroom. 

When he gets back to the party, everyone glances over at him, but no one teases him. He can see that some of them want to  _ really really _ badly, can see it in the pinch of their mouths and the crinkle in their eyes, but something stops them. Maybe pity from getting bamboozled by Ned again, or maybe because they’ve already teased him about Shane tonight. Either way, he grateful that they just let it happen without drawing attention to it. 

Shane looks up when Ryan approaches the group he’d been talking to before, and Ryan thinks that he might choke on his drink a little, but can’t tell for sure. He looks away before Shane catches him staring, chest tight and neck hot. 

“You look nice,” Curly giggles, but it doesn’t sound malicious at all. “Even wearing something three times your size, you look extremely pleasant. How unfair.” 

“Thanks?” Ryan replies, laughing, and feels his nerves settle a little. “I try my best.” 

“Well, you get an overall A for performance and execution.” 

Ryan rolls his eyes and changes the subject. 

The rest of the party goes by without incident, and before he knows it, Quinta and Sara are calling for their attention and announcing it’s time for everyone to head out. 

“This was a great party, everyone! You all deserved it!” Sara tells them. “Go home and enjoy your weekend!” 

“And don’t forget your White Elephant gifts!” Quinta adds. 

When Ryan looks away from Quinta and Sara, he seeks out Shane. He finds that Shane is already looking back, and it makes that warmth in his stomach kick up again. 

“I know I drove us here,” Ryan says, leaning in closer to be heard over the clatter of people laughing and getting ready to leave. “But I am not going to be able to drive us home.” 

“That’s okay- I’m not exactly sober myself. I’ll just get us an Uber, alright?” Shane laughs, and pulls his phone out. “Do you just want to come to my place and crash there tonight? I don’t think I can help you us to your apartment and I don’t trust you to get there by yourself.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,  _ Mom _ .” 

Shane laughs again and taps one a few more things. Then he slides his phone into his pocket and tells Ryan: “She’ll be here in five. Let’s get you down to the lobby, Maxxie.” 

“Please don’t call me that ever again.” Ryan sniffs, and follows Shane over to his desk. “It’s Mr. Grinch to you, and don’t forget it.” 

“Mr. Grinch is gonna need to be washed at least twice.” 

He deflates a little. “Yeah, I know. Ned fucked that up pretty good, huh?” 

Shane shrugs and doesn’t look at Ryan when he says: “Yeah, but it worked out pretty well, I think. You look cute in that sweater.” 

Ryan almost pulls a Ned by tripping, but stops himself just in time. “Oh, do I?” 

“Yup,” Shane confirms what he just said, and still won’t look at Ryan when he gathers up his coat and says, “Let’s get your stuff and leave, Ry.” 

Ryan has a sneaking suspicion that he’s missing something obvious, has the same itch in his throat that he gets when he has a hunch about a suspect on a cold case, but the combination of tiredness from the week and alcohol is making his head a little fuzzy. He drops it and lets Shane steer him over to his desk to grab his jacket and his gift. After Ryan struggles into his jacket and secures the gift, they stumble out of the office with a “Bye, Sara, bye, Quinta, see you on Monday!”, some goodbyes to whatever coworkers are left, and get into the elevator together. Just like before, they’re the only ones in it, and they stand just as close together as they did on the ride up. Maybe it’s why Ryan leans his head against Shane’s shoulder and tells him:

“Tonight was the best.” 

And maybe it’s why Shane rests his head on top of Ryan’s, says: “I agree.” and keeps it there until the bell dings and they have to get off. The itching gets worse, but Ryan’s too warm and too happy to care, so he just follows Shane outside to wait for their Uber. 

**_~.~.~_ **

By the time the Uber drops them off at Shane’s apartment, Ryan is mostly sober again, but the warm sensation has yet to go away. He feels full and happy and weightless, and it probably shows in the way he practically skips up the couple flights of stairs to Shane’s place.

Shane laughs at him when Ryan all but floats up to his front door. “You’re excited.” 

Ryan leans back against the wall and looks up at Shane, a big, dumb grin spreading across his face. “I’m just happy. Tonight was really fun.” 

For all of his teasing, Shane also looks pretty damn happy, from the way his eyes glitter in the hallway lighting to the way his cheeks are flushed a healthy red. Ryan doesn’t think he’s ever seen his best friend smile so much for so long.

“Yeah, tonight was really great,” Shane agrees, and then lets them both inside. 

After he shrugs his jacket off, Ryan catches a waft of eggnog and rum. He suspects that it’s from where the drink has dried on his skin and the top of his jeans, and wrinkles his nose. 

“Hey, can I take a shower?” he asks. “I still smell like Ned’s drink.” 

Shane laughs and then nods. “Yeah, go ahead- I’ll find you something to wear. Hopefully Fulmer doesn’t get something on that, too.” 

“Let’s fucking hope.”

Ryan heads to the bathroom while Shane heads to his room; he starts the shower up as hot as he thinks he can stand it, and as it warms up, he painstakingly pulls off Shane’s sweater, and then his jeans and briefs. The whole process is stickier than Ryan was expecting, and he makes a handful of faces as each article of clothing comes off. 

“Thanks, Ned,” Ryan sighs to himself, but can’t help but smile.

He takes his time showering, trying to wash both the eggnog and the stress of the work week off of him. Ryan doesn’t get to shower at Shane’s often, but when he does, he likes to savor it. After his crush on his best friend slowly but steadily started to rocket towards being hopelessly in love with him, Ryan found using his shower stuff to be kind of an intimate ritual. Using the shampoo he smells whenever Shane bends over to look at his laptop, using the body wash that he smells whenever Shane throws an arm around his shoulders, using the soap that he only smells when they hug each other. The hot shower makes all of these different smells even sharper, and Ryan gets lost in a blissful haze the longer he spends under the spray. 

So maybe Ryan is still a little tipsy. 

After what has probably been be twenty minutes, and after Ryan has scrubbed his skin so much that it’s turning pink, he reluctantly shuts the water off and gets out. He remembers that he doesn’t have any clean clothes with him at the exact same moment that he steps out of the shower and sees a little stack of clothes on top of the sink. He blinks at them; he doesn’t remember ever hearing the door open or shut. Shane probably crept in while Ryan was lost in his own little world, he tells himself, and then gets dressed. 

Ryan thinks he probably looks a little ridiculous in Shane’s clothes. Much like the Max sweater, Shane’s old college sweatshirt almost goes down to Ryan’s mid-thigh, and the sleeves have to be rolled up a few times for him to be able to use his hands. The joggers are a little better because of the tapered ankles, but Ryan still has to roll the waistband over twice so that they won’t fall off of his hips. He checks himself out in the mirror, and between the oversized clothes and his flushed face, he can’t tell if he looks cute or rumpled. 

He shrugs at himself in the mirror, and thinks that he really doesn’t care. He’ll probably be asleep soon, anyways, and so will Shane, so- little room for error. 

When Ryan steps out of the bathroom, the light is on in Shane’s bedroom. Ryan can hear him stand up from bed, and hears it when Shane calls out: “You can leave the light and the fan on- I’m gonna hop in really quick and get all of this glitter off of me.”

“Okay.” Ryan calls back, and doesn’t wait for him to come out and probably laugh at the way his clothes swamp Ryan’s smaller stature.

He pads his way out into the kitchen for some water and then to the living room to put something on while he waits for Shane to shower. Ironically, one of the first things he finds while idly scrolling through the channels is  _ A Christmas Story,  _ and Ryan picks it while fondly thinking of his coworkers. 

Ryan feels a new kind of serenity once he gets comfortable: wearing Shane’s clothes, smelling like his shampoo and body wash, wrapped up in a blanket on his couch. Shane’s presence is all around him in the best way possible, and Ryan thinks he could live in this moment for the rest of time.

He’s just gotten to the scene where Flick gets his tongue stuck to the lamp post when Shane finally emerges from the bathroom. He looks identical to Ryan- old sweatshirt, joggers, and skin a pretty shade of pink from the hot water. He looks unbearably soft, and Ryan has to swallow and look away before all of his thoughts spill out into the comfortable atmosphere. 

“That was wonderful,” Shane tells him, and Ryan knows exactly what he means. 

“I know right. There’s nothing like scrubbing Ned’s eggnog off of your skin to make you feel brand new.” 

Shane laughs and climbs onto the couch next to him. When he sees that Ryan has picked  _ A Christmas Story  _ for them, he laughs again. 

“How did I know you’d pick this?”

Ryan pokes him with his foot. “Andrew got me going on it. I needed to reassure myself that Zach and Keith really are cracked for thinking that  _ Elf _ is better than this cinematic geniosity.” 

“For sure,” Shane agrees, and instead of pushing Ryan’s foot off of him, he curls a hand around Ryan’s ankle and leaves it there. Ryan stares for a second, and then decides to leave his foot there, as well, and gets comfortable.

They watch the movie in their usual comfortable silence. Sometimes they’ll laugh at the movie, point out their favorite parts, or talk about how absolutely annoying Randy is, but they mostly just sit and watch. Ryan is a little distracted by Shane’s thumb moving over his ankle bone, but the motion does more to comfort him than key him up. His mind easily floats between the movie and how much he loves Shane, loves him so much that his body aches with it. 

Sometimes, during quieter scenes or commercials, Ryan will feel Shane’s eyes on him. At first he thinks he’s imagining it, or that maybe Shane is looking at him because he’s remembering the eggnog situation and trying not to laugh. But one time he finds the courage to glance back at him, and the look on Shane’s face is one that Ryan only ever catches glimpses of, sometimes so quickly that he thinks it was just the lighting acting weird. It’s the visual equivalent to what he feels in his sternum and guts whenever he’s around Shane, or thinks about him at random times throughout the day, or remembers how easily his body could cover Ryan’s when it’s dark and quiet outside and in his bedroom. It’s adoration, and trust, and more than anything: love. 

Ryan’s breath hitches, but it’s covered up by the sound of Ralphie kicking the shit out of Scott Farkus. Shane doesn’t notice, eyes back on the TV, and Ryan suddenly sees it all. He knows how his own face looks whenever he’s around Shane- mostly because all their friends are quick to tease him about it- and whenever he thinks about Shane when he’s  _ not _ around. The way Shane’s eyes crinkle at the edges and the way his mouth tilts up at the corners and the way his entire face rounds out with affection are all exact replicas of Ryan’s face. 

Ryan’s oblivious at the best of times, but he’s not dumb; now that he knows what pictures all of these individual pieces create, he’s annoyed he didn’t see it earlier. 

Whatever’s left of the alcohol and his comfortable mood gives him the push he needs. He waits until the movie gets to a quieter part, and waits for Shane to go back to looking at him. When Ralphie and Randy are done decorating the Christmas tree and are told to go to bed, Ryan feels the heavy weight of Shane’s eyes on him, and the barely-there squeeze he gives Ryan’s ankle. He moves around like he’s trying to get comfortable again, takes a deep breath that could be mistaken as a sigh, and turns his eyes to meet Shane’s. 

“What’re you looking at me for?” Ryan asks him. He keeps any and all forms of judgement out of his voice, even the positive notes. He wants to come off as calm as he feels. 

Shane titters, trying to play if off as a joke. “I’m not looking at you. I’m just thinking about the party and remembering the shit that happened.” 

Ryan almost buys it,  _ would _ probably buy it if he didn’t know Shane like another layer of skin. He pokes Shane’s stomach with his foot, and tilts his head. 

“Bullshit, big guy. I’ve felt you staring at me for almost the entire movie.” Shane’s forced laughter catches in his throat, and Ryan notices it when he stops moving his thumb over his ankle. Ryan has to hold himself back from reaching out for Shane in case he scares him away. “What’s up? Is something wrong?” 

Shane says nothing, but doesn’t look away, either. Ryan can tell that he wants to say something, but also would probably rather chew off his own arm that admit to anything out loud. He hides it well, but Ryan can tell that he’s scared, and more than that, he’s tired. 

Ryan softens his face as much as he can, lets all of that love for his best friend rise up to the surface, and tries again. “Shane.” 

It seems to do the trick. Shane licks his lips, squeezes Ryan’s ankle again, and blurts out: “I like how you look in my clothes.” 

Ryan blinks; that’s not what he was expecting to hear, and his brain is starts to melt a little when the words sink in, but. He can work with this.

“Oh yeah?”

Shane nods, almost mechanically. The fear has simmered down into a sort of cold shock- shock that he actually said something out loud. “Yeah. I like it more than I should.” 

Something about that line makes Ryan grin, and then makes him laugh. He laughs like he’s still at the Christmas party, listening to Andrew and Keith duke it out over  _ A Christmas Story  _ and  _ Elf. _ He can feel Shane’s eyes on him again, and while he lets the laughter run its course, he gently presses his foot into Shane’s stomach to keep him from getting up and leaving. 

“Shane,” he says, once he can breathe again. The force behind his smile is hurting his cheeks. “That’s not really a problem you should be worried about.” 

“What do you mean?” Shane stills looks nervous, but now he looks a little curious. At least he’s not running for the hills. 

Ryan uses that liquid courage to grin up at Shane, tilt his head back suggestively, and tell him: “Maybe I like you lookin’ at me.” 

Shane swallows and fastens his hand around Ryan’s ankle like he’s clinging to the edge of a cliff. “Oh.” 

“Maybe I like wearing your clothes, too.” He pauses, and then finishes with: “Maybe I like that you like seeing me in your clothes.” 

Shane opens his mouth, and then closes it again, obviously trying to find the words he wants to say. Heat is taking over the anxiety and fright, and Ryan watches as it seeps into all of Shane’s splintered pieces, watches as it straightens Shane’s back out again and makes his eyes swim. 

“Is it, like, a comfort thing, then?” 

Ryan thinks about it. “In some ways, yes.” 

A deep inhale, and a deep exhale. “What about the other ways?” 

A moment of silence, and then Ryan saying with much less teasing: “In the other ways, maybe I like wearing your clothes because I like feeling close to you. Maybe I always thought it was the closest I was gonna get to you.” 

Ryan’s throat closes for half a second, suddenly realizing that he could, quite possibly, be fucking up the best thing that has ever happened to him. He’d bet his life on his feelings being requited, and but he can’t put his life on Shane accepting that, too, and not pulling away from Ryan. 

But he only has to worry for that half a second before Shane’s grip on his ankle relaxes and he lets out a small, relieved laugh. 

“Ryan, you really have no clue, huh?” Shane asks him, and pushes forward so Ryan doesn’t have to ask  _ him _ . “I’m helplessly in love with you, man. I’m always trying to get right next to you, whether I consciously mean to or not. If I could get away with it, I’d be as close to you as possible for as long as possible.” 

The heat on Shane’s face slithers its way up Ryan’s leg and settles right at the base of his stomach. “Who said it wasn’t possible?” 

Shane tilts his head, and  _ finally _ , Ryan watches all of that mutual love for each other shine on his face, like the last burning star in the sky. “Is that what you want?” 

“Shane, that’s all I’ve wanted since I met you.” 

They stare at each other while the Parker parents curl up on the armchair to watch the snow come down, old, mellow Christmas music playing in the background. Shane can’t keep the smile off of his face any longer, and Ryan can’t stop himself from smiling back. 

To lessen the weight of their confessions, since neither of them are really that great at being serious, Ryan pokes Shane with his foot again and says: 

“You know, I really think you just like knowing that I’m yours.” 

Shane starts. “What?” 

“Me, wearing your clothes? I think you like it so much because you know that it means I belong to you.” 

They stare at each other for all of two breaths before Shane moves up to kiss the self-satisfied look off of Ryan’s face. Ryan is expecting (aching for) it, and he eagerly curls his arms around Shane’s shoulders to pull him down. The kiss is soft and sweet, with a little edge of that shared heat, and everything Ryan has been longing for for three years. He pushes one hand into the back of Shane’s hair to keep him close, and shivers when Shane slips both of his hands up the back of his sweatshirt. Ryan feels overwhelmed by him in the best way possible.

Shane kisses him until he can’t breathe right, until Ryan is shaking a little and feels like he’s about to go off like a grenade. And then Shane sits back on his haunches, hands still shoved up under Ryan’s shirt, and gives him a nice, long once-over. Ryan bets that he looks like a wreck, with his productless, air-dried hair, red lips, glassy eyes, and Shane’s clothes in various states of disarray on his body. 

Shane looks down at him like he doesn’t believe Ryan exists. 

“You’re right,” Shane tells him, just a little unsteady. “I  _ love _ knowing that you’re mine. I love you so much that I can’t stand it, sometimes. At least when you’re wearing my clothes and looking so fucking beautiful, when it’s in  _ my _ house, I can pretend that it means something.” 

Ryan smiles softly at him, and recurls his arms around Shane’s neck. “It does mean something, big guy- it means I love you, too.”

Shane snorts, but also looks like he could burst into tears when the Christmas tree lights catch his eyes just right. “That was pretty cheesy. This whole situation is pretty ridiculous, Ry.” 

Ryan shrugs. “Maybe so. But I mean it.” 

Shane’s face cracks open around a grin that must make his cheeks ache, and he leans down to kiss Ryan again. Ryan clings to him and kisses him back, months of pining and longing waiting right on the tip of his tongue. 

When Shane pulls away again to catch his breath, Ryan whispers: “You might be interested in knowing that I also love to use your shower before wearing your clothes. I  _ love _ smelling like you.” 

“Ryan Bergara,” Shane groans, and then proceeds to push his face into Ryan’s neck. Maybe to hide, or maybe to get a lungful of the smell of his shower gel on Ryan’s skin. “You’re going to fucking kill me.” 

Ryan just laughs again and gets more comfortable. It’s apparent that Shane isn’t going to be moving anytime soon, so Ryan adjusts his arms around his shoulders and encourages Shane to lay how he wants to. They end up with Shane’s face buried in Ryan’s neck and shoulder area, his hands on Ryan’s sides, and Ryan hugging him tightly. When Shane lets out a breath he must have been holding for months, he practically melts into Ryan’s hold. Ryan feels himself melt back into the couch, and it’s absolutely incredible. Maybe better than the way Shane looked at him, and maybe even better than it felt to kiss him for the first time.

“We probably shouldn’t fall asleep here,” Shane mumbles into his chest, though he makes no move to get up.

“You’re probably right.” Ryan keeps his arms around Shane and his eyes on  _ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,  _ the next movie playing on TV. “We should go to bed.” 

“Yeah, we should.” 

They from one hundred to zero in the blink of an eye, and against their better judgement, the two of them do end up falling asleep on Shane’s couch. Ryan feels Shane’s breathing even out only a few minutes after they lay down together, and finds that he’s not far behind. As he’s drifting off,  _ Rudolph _ a quiet and comforting background noise, he breathes in Shane’s smell, soaks in the warmth of him, and smiles to himself. 

He thinks that maybe he owes a Thank You card and some flowers to whatever brands of eggnog and rum that lead him to coming to Shane’s tonight. And, maybe, even a little something for Ned Fulmer.

**_~.~.~_ **

When they walk into the office together on Monday morning, one set of hands linked together and coffees in the other, the entire office goes nuts.

“That’s what I’m fucking talking about!” Zach yells from his desk. “I can’t believe it finally happened.” 

“I never thought any of us would live to see the day!” Eugene yells from right next to Zach. “I think a round of drinks is much needed for this long-awaited day.” 

“You’re hilarious,” Ryan says sarcastically, and hides his goofy smile behind his coffee. “A couple of ol’ comedians.”

“What’s all the ruckus for?” Quinta asks, coming out of the conference room; she looks at Zach and Eugene, and then looks at Ryan and Shane. Her face changes from unamused to surprised to delighted so fast that it makes Shane laugh. “Holy shit y’all- congratulations, you slow bastards. It only took you three years.” 

“Thank you.” Ryan and Shane say together, and then Ryan courtesies for the hell of it. 

The rest of their coworkers shout out their congratulations while Ryan and Shane go to their separate desks and get set up for the day. They continue to thank their friends and laugh at them, and Ryan doesn’t remember ever being happier than he is in this moment. When he catches Shane’s eye from across the office, he gets a feeling that Shane is thinking the same thing, if his big smile and bright eyes are anything to go by. 

There are a few coworkers missing, and each of them get a short and simple: “Ryan and Shane are finally dating!” screamed at them when they walk in the door. TJ gives them both a thumbs up before going for the coffee maker; Maycie hugs them both and tells them she’s happy for them; Tania just tells them: “Fucking finally, oh my Christ,” before also getting some coffee. 

Curly is the last one in, and consequently, his reaction is the best. He goes right up to Ryan, takes both of his hands, and gives him a little speech. 

“You did it, my little love muffin,” Curly says it like he’s about to cry. “You went and got your man. I’m so happy for you, Ryan- I’m happy for you too, Shane. You both deserve the world. This is the best news I’ve received all year.” 

Ryan and Shane laugh, and Ryan says: “Thanks, Curly, we appreciate it.” 

Of course, someone decides to ruin the sticky-sweet mood of Curly’s words, and, of course, that someone is- 

Ned pokes his head over the side of his desk and tells the office: “I guess you could say that good old Saint Dick came to town a little early this year.” 

“Fulmer!” Sara snaps. “Just for that, you’re doing the lunch run by yourself later. Don’t befoul my boys’ accomplishment with your vulgarity.” 

“Yes, boss,” Ned sighs, but doesn’t look too put out. Shane flips him off affectionately. 

All in all, it’s a pretty great morning. It gets even better when Quinta announces that they’re going to play another fun game together- the Christmas version of  _ Hedbanz. _

Before they head into the conference room, Shane stops by Ryan’s desk for some pre-game heckling. 

“You better keep your head on straight in there, Ry- I know that you have hard time looking anywhere but at my beautiful face, but your team is counting on you.” 

Ryan laughs and smacks him lightly in the stomach. “‘On straight’- that’s a good one. I think you need to chill the fuck out, Madej- if you think that just because I kissed you that I’m gonna go easy on you, you’ve got another thing coming.” 

Shane squints at him. “Is that a threat?” 

“That’s a promise, sweetheart.”

Shane breaks character enough to laugh and press a light, chaste kiss to Ryan’s mouth. Ryan kisses him back and doesn’t care who sees.

When Shane pulls away, he’s back in character. He points an accusing finger at Ryan and backs away from him. “I know your tricks, Bergara. I’m not falling for them this time. I’ve got some recon to do with my teammates.” 

And with that, Shane books it back over to his side of the office to scheme. Ryan watches him go, a stupid grin all over his face, and can’t really think about anything else but how hopelessly in love he is with that giant dumbass. 

He gets to stare at Shane for all of about ten seconds before he hears Quinta call: “Hey, lover boy, let’s go! We got some names to kick and some ass to take!” Ryan goes, and as he get settled in, thinks of some good ways to use their situation to his advantage. Shane keeps sending him cryptic looks in between whispering amongst his teammates, and hey, if he wants to play that game, then by all means. 

“Watch this,” Ryan whispers to Daysha, who’s been clued into Shane’s obvious scheming since they got into the conference room. She waits and watches as Ryan pulls off his Lakers hoodie to reveal a long-sleeved  _ Star Wars  _ shirt. 

“I don’t get it,” she whispers back, but Ryan holds up a hand where only they can see it. 

“Just wait until he looks over here again.” 

They wait, and are rewarded when Shane glances over at them and stops speaking mid-sentence. He stares and stares at Ryan, and his shirt, and seems to forget what he had just been doing. 

“Is that my shirt?”

Ryan smirks. “I don’t know, is it?” Under the table, Daysha gives him a high five. 

Shane stares some more, and then smirks at Ryan; he can finally see the affection and the hunger that always accompanies the smirk that he couldn’t see before.

“Oh, it’s  _ so _ on, baby.”


End file.
